


an act of observance

by rojohbi



Series: observance [1]
Category: Red Dead Redemption (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Arthur Morgan Lives, Friends to Lovers, High Honor Arthur Morgan, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, tender cowboy love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-19
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-07-08 07:02:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 43,892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19865446
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rojohbi/pseuds/rojohbi
Summary: He could leave. No one would blame him; this gang, once so tightly knit, is a nervous horse just moments away from bolting and taking the carriage with it. Charles doesn’t know why he can’t just make himself go.'You know exactly why', he thinks wryly, 'Of course you know.'





	1. cognizance

**Author's Note:**

> i'd like to personally thank each and every one of us for collectively deciding that charles is a top and that's just that on that

The stamping of massive hooves. Dark, dense fur and beady eyes that seem to hold miles of depth. The grand slope of a spine that crests in a regal crown, horns jutting out at a precise angle that Arthur grasps for in his memory. 

“Morning, Arthur.”

He opens his eyes as a hot cup is pressed into one of his hands. The other snaps his journal shut to hide the half-finished sketch of a bison, stubby pencil wedged in the pages.

“G’morning.” Charles drinks from his own cup, an earthy-smelling tea of some sort. He very graciously makes no comment about the journal. For a long time, Arthur had been convinced that Charles was a cold, taciturn man by the way his face hardly moved an inch. Now, he can see the softness in the creases by his mouth when Charles takes a seat beside him by the campfire. Can see the sleep in the tilt of his brow, hear it in his low voice. 

Arthur sips his coffee and gives an appreciative hum - black with a bit of honey. He’s not sure when he’d made his preference known, but the bit of familiarity warms him up in the cool morning. “Thank you,” he says, belated. Charles barely nods, the tea tucked close under his nose like just the smell will wake him faster. 

“I’d like to go hunting today.” Charles looks over at him, lowering the cup just enough that Arthur can watch his lips move with the words. He is immediately distracted, wholly and without clear reason. Wonders idly what that earthy smell would be like mixed with the gunsmoke that Arthur can always smell on him. Wonders if he’ll ever be close enough to tell.

“Arthur?”

His eyes snap back up, seeing a curious look flit across Charles’ face before it disappears again. He had said something else, something Arthur had missed completely. Ah, hell.

“Huh?”

“I asked if you wanted to ride with me,” Charles says, mouth twitching at the corner. Arthur looks back down at his coffee, tilting his hat down with some strange fear that Charles could see something unspoken there in his face. Not even sure what that something is, Arthur hides it away. Apparently, he’s more a fool today than usual.

“Sure,” he agrees, before he’s even considered it. Doubts he could refuse even if he had good reason to. “Always.”

\--

Arthur Morgan has never considered himself a clever man. A good shot, sure. An intimidation tactic and provider for the gang. Not stupid by any means, but whatever thinking he did was only for himself. Left the strategy to Hosea and the like. Cleverness did more harm than good when it came to Arthur’s responsibilities. It’s easier for a dull lout to kill and maim, to bend and break the edges of one’s moral code. Smart men can be wicked just like anyone else, but they don’t tend to be the heavy hitters.

He’s a thug more than a schemer, for sure. A man with simple needs and simple thoughts. 

Recently, he has not been having simple thoughts. 

There’s always been a degree of attention that he pays to those in the gang. It’s a part of living with people, being by their side day and night. Tilly loves a good game of dominoes, and Miss Grimshaw always asks for fresh peaches when they have a bit of spare coin for delicacies. Javier will only buy guitar strings from Valentine or Strawberry, says the sound is better the way they make them. You get to know people whether you’re trying to or not, and Arthur has never minded a bit of familiarity. He likes that timid sort of surprise a crook gets when you remember that they like peanut butter cookies the best. It’s silly, something he’d never voice. But that’s not strange to him.

What’s strange is just how much he notices Charles in particular.

He brushes it off at first, figuring that everything he learns about Charles just seems so unassuming. Hands that can effortlessly shatter bone carve delicate shapes out of wood, careful and adroit. That hulking form of his gliding silently across the forest floor like a ghost, so graceful it takes the breath out of Arthur the first time they hunt together. Arthur is a damn good judge of character, and his rationale says that Charles is on his mind so often because the man is a mystery. A broken compass, the surface always pointing in the wrong direction. 

For a while, it stays like that - plain old curiosity. Nothing too alarming if he doesn’t think too hard about it. 

Sometimes, by the time you realize something is falling it’s about to hit the floor.

The celebration upon Sean’s safe return is raucous, everyone light of spirits. They crack open a case of whiskey they’d been saving in a corner of the chuckwagon for this sort of occasion, the usual worries faded for a moment. Arthur is sloshed, to put it lightly, not sure how he got there and not done heading in that direction. 

Everyone is around the fire or within earshot, shout-singing bawdy songs to Javier’s guitar and chatting loudly over the din of the crowd. There’s only one missing, someone that Arthur’s been keeping an eye out for since the festivities began. 

He stands, John giving an indignant shout as Arthur realizes his brother must’ve been telling him a story that he wasn’t listening to in the least. _Whoops_ , he chuckles. Waves an apology to John over his shoulder and gets a grunt and eyeroll in return. Arthur figures that means he’s forgiven and wanders a bit, tipping his hat to Mary-Beth and Karen where they’re tittering in the corner. He’s so busy looking that he smacks his hip straight into one of the tables, the impact almost upsetting his balance if it weren’t for a hand on his shoulder to steady him. 

“Oof, Christ. Thank you, Hosea,” he says with a laugh as he sees his savior, the hand redirecting him into one of the chairs at the table that so rudely attacked him. Damn thing. He knocks it with his knee as he’s sitting down and manages to hurt himself more. 

Maybe he is an idiot. Oh, well.

“Not at all, Arthur. How about you sit with me for a second, get your wits about you before you hunt down Mister Smith. Won’t be much of a conversationalist at the moment, will you?” Hosea’s smile is warm and only slightly teasing when Arthur finally focuses in on him. He holds out a waterskin, which Arthur gratefully swallows down. 

“No, I s'pose- Wait, how’d you know I’m lookin’ for Charles? You seen ‘im?” Arthur takes another swig from the waterskin and refuses to think about the widening of Hosea’s smile, what it might mean. Hosea is a prime example of cleverness only getting you into more trouble than it’s worth.

“I have, indeed. And I know you’re lookin’ for him ‘cause you’re always lookin’ for him. Or lookin’ at him.” Hosea stares him down for a moment, and Arthur looks anywhere and everywhere else. Hosea is an intelligent man, keen eyes that can pick up most things about a stranger. Arthur is, for all intents and purposes, his son. There are few that Hosea knows better, that he’s known longer. Dutch knows Arthur well, but Hosea was always the one who could tell by one look at him if he was lying about a job or if he was back late because he’d been rolling around in the hay with some farmer’s boy. John too, both of them caught red-handed near every time. Hosea always _knew_. And while part of Arthur still felt warm and good at the thought of having a real father who _knew_ even as a grown man now, he was also sure that he was about to hear something he had no interest in hearing. 

“Now, don’t get that look in your eye,” Hosea chides. “I know when you’re dyin’ to dodge a talk. I ain’t gonna make you admit to anything you’re not willing to.” Arthur gives him a dry look in response, and Hosea kicks him under the table with a snort of laughter. “Don’t you give me that, I give you my word. I just want you to be nice and aware before you go find him, less likely you’ll put your foot in your mouth that way.”

Arthur scoffs, knowing full well it’s the truth but unwilling to give Hosea an ounce of credit for it. “I am _not_ likely to-” And Hosea kicks him again, right in the shin this time, prompting a loud curse and a laugh as they scuffle at each other harmlessly.

Hosea actually keeps his word - no teasing other than a few pointed looks whenever Charles comes up in their conversation. Which is often, much to Arthur’s chagrin. They hunt together, do odd jobs together. If they’re both in camp, Charles is always the first and last person he speaks to during the day. Shit, even their horses have bonded well enough, his young mare Adelaide always beside Taima and grooming or resting against her. Despite all of it, Hosea doesn’t do much but look fonder and fonder each time that name falls out of Arthur’s mouth. _Charles_ , he says like he can taste it. _Charles_ , he says like the mere name of him will conjure his broad shadow.

They talk until the sun finally hits the horizon, gold light starting to darken into night. Hosea stands with a groan and stretches, old bones popping in a way that almost tempts Arthur into ribbing him. He’s been so good for the last hour or so that Arthur can’t bring himself to do it, just chuckling to himself instead and following suit with far less but still a few cracking joints.

When he stands, Arthur finds that he’s sobered up just enough to be steady and sure-footed. The world isn’t spinning so badly, his cheeks still warm and tongue a bit heavy in his mouth. It’s perfect, and he almost thanks Hosea when he’s beaten to the punch.

“Mister Smith is taking the night watch, good man that he is. Bring him a drink or something, hm? I’m sure he’ll appreciate it.” Hosea winks at him and shoves Arthur off into the night, that soft chuckle reassuring at his back. 

Arthur swings by the chuckwagon, hunting for a fresh bottle of booze to bring along. There’s a small pouch on one of the shelves, the bright beading on the strings unmistakable. When he opens it, the smell of something sweet and woody wafts up - Charles’ tea.

He spends another few minutes fiddling with a kettle and cup before he wanders out of camp and into the dark.

\--

Charles likes the quiet. He also likes the sound of distant merriment, voices a quiet thrum with the occasional individual rising above the din. That sound is enough for him, the celebration itself a bit too wild for his temperament. Usually, he’s happy to drink a bit and just watch everyone bustle about, their drunkenness entertainment in and of itself. Someone needed to take watch tonight though, and Charles wasn’t feeling very festive at the moment. 

There’s a small oil lantern on the ground with him where he’s seated against a wide tree, whittling down a bit of horn from the bison that he and Arthur had hunted together. A rearing stag is starting to form out of the vague proportions he’d started with, antlers and legs slowly defining themselves. 

When it’s done, it will be a gift for Arthur. A sort of ‘thank you’ for how kind and attentive he’d been while they tracked the herd, not only listening to Charles talk about his mother and her people but asking questions. Hearing him, taking it all to heart. It had been a while since that trip, but Charles could see clear as day the way Arthur had stroked the bison’s head when they’d taken it down. Reverent and awestruck. Arthur had murmured something to the creature, low enough in that rasping drawl of his that Charles couldn’t make it out.

That voice. Charles was a grown man, considered himself to be a man of composure. Somehow, that cowboy drawl got to him every time. Tugged at his gut, left him a little weak-willed some mornings when Arthur was hungover and hoarse, voice low in his chest. He could conjure that voice if he focused. Throaty and warm, distracting.

“Charles.”

He doesn’t startle, but it’s a near thing. “Arthur,” he says, turning to find the man standing a few trees away, bottle of whiskey in one hand and a cup in the other. “When’d you get so civilized as to get drunk from a cup?” Charles inclines his head, inviting him over. 

Arthur seems relieved, sitting beside him more gently than Charles would expect. “Hah, well. Don’t get your hopes up too quick. It ain’t for the drink. It’s for, uh- It’s- Hmph.” Arthur grunts, seemingly flustered as he gives up explaining and just hands Charles the warm cup. 

It’s his tea. He realizes the second he reaches for the cup, cherry bark and rosehip drifting up in his direction and soothing him almost on instinct. Arthur is very deliberately not looking at him, hat tilted down in that distinctive way of his as he wedges the cap off the whiskey bottle. Still doesn’t look him in the eye as he offers to pour some whiskey into the tea cup, an offer Charles gladly takes him up on. 

This strange man. This roughneck thug, called a brute or dullard at every opportunity, made him a cup of tea. The whole thing is so oddly tender. Charles is still staring at him, and Arthur has not yet acknowledged his action.

“Saw you weren’t ‘round the party,” Arthur starts as he pulls a cigarette out, lights it with a deep inhale. Charles takes a sip and waits, the blend warming him up wonderfully. “Hosea’d told me that you was down this way, and I thought I’d, uh. That I’d come do this instead, if you was open to company.” Arthur steals a quick glance at Charles and hides his face again when their eyes meet, clearly unsure what to do with the scrutiny. “Them bastards just get annoying after a while. Prefer some quiet.”

“And the tea?” Charles asks, unable to bite back his curiosity. There just has to be some reason. It’s not like he could just grab a mug of it - Arthur _made_ it for him. It’s steeped too long, heady and cloying flavor only exacerbated by the whiskey, but he hardly notices. It only confirms that Arthur’s never made a cup of tea in his life, that he’s just watched Charles closely or often enough to figure it out. The idea of Arthur’s eyes on him while unawares sent a pleasant thrill through him.

“Well, ain’t nobody else drinkin’ it so I knew it was yours.” Arthur chuckles, shrugs. He's incredibly skilled at answering questions without saying anything at all. Charles wonders when he learned that, whether he even noticed he was doing it. Arthur finally looks over at Charles, brim of his hat shading his eyes. “And if it’s yours, knew you’d like it. Wanted to bring you somethin’ you’d like.” 

_You did_ , Charles thinks warmly. _You did_.

“Thank you.” Arthur looks up at that, finally meets his eyes without cowing away from the attention. Charles hasn’t looked away for longer than a moment. “You’re a sorry excuse for an outlaw, Arthur Morgan.”

Arthur laughs, startled. “What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”

Charles has to hide his smile behind his cup best he can, looking out into the night. He looks back at Arthur just in time to catch his gaze. “You’re too soft, cowboy. You keep bringing me things, I’ll start to think you’re sweet on me.”

He watches Arthur’s throat work, the stubbled skin cast gold in the lamplight. Arthur looks stricken for a moment before he seems to collect himself, humming thoughtfully. “Well,” he says, lighting a cigarette with fingers deceptively deft for their size. Takes a long drag. “We wouldn’t want that, would we Charles?”


	2. acquaintance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is not the man that I know, Charles thinks to himself, but knows that isn’t true. Knows that this is just as much the man he adores as the man who mumbles in his sleep, who sketches flowers and bison and strange rock carvings. Who collects cigarette cards for a stranger. Who could kill Charles with not too much of a fight, if he had to.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you guys so, so much for your warm responses to this work. i couldn't be more excited to share the rest of this story with you all!
> 
> a few things; first, this story does not work chronologically with the game. i've tried to give ample context for what parts of the story are moved around, so just let me know if anything is unclear
> 
> second, i took down the expected chapters of this because the more i write the more comes to mind, and i honestly have no idea how long it's going to be. i have a lot of prewritten small scenes that im tying together so it's hard to gauge, but im thinking it'll end up about 5 chapters long
> 
> finally, the next few chapters are going to bump the rating up to explicit for both fun and so very not fun reasons - including graphic violence. warning you all ahead of time if needed :)

Hands slide over his shoulders, dipping into his collarbone and ghosting up his throat. They glide over the soft skin there and under his chin, over the stubble where it begins. Over his lips until they part just so, never pressing past his teeth but still wet with the heat of his breath.

_Once, the hands in his dreams had been delicate and soft. Rings at the slender knuckles. Now, he can feel the calluses and scars of someone like him. A man who hunts, kills, is hunted._

The fingers card through his hair, pulling it away from his neck for lips to press up his spine. Barely kisses, more just touching - a push, a lift, another, curving around to his jaw. His earlobe is taken between teeth gently, grasping but not biting. 

_Once, the mouth in his dreams had felt soft and demure. Small and sweet-like. Now, he can feel the scrape of stubble across his skin. Chapped lips and the wide bridge of a nose broken too many times._

A body is pressed to his back, warm and broad against his bare skin. The hands run up his chest from under his arms. They wrap around him, strong enough to lift him with ease. The mouth slides down and teeth sink into the junction of his neck and shoulders just deep enough to draw a gasp-

And he wakes.

Charles is hovering over him, hand gently shaking him awake. His thumb rests against the skin inside of his unbuttoned shirt collar, and the bare hint of contact burns. Arthur’s hand slides over those warm fingers as he looks up blearily at Charles, breathing in the smell of gunsmoke and wood that always surrounds him. _Those shoulders, these hands_ , he thinks, foggy and unclear. _It was him_.

When had he stopped thinking of Mary and started thinking of someone else entirely?

Charles doesn’t seem to be breathing, his fingers curling into Arthur just so. His lips part, and he moves forward the barest inch before jerking back as Pearson drops something that clatters loudly from across the camp. Clears his throat as that placid mask slips back into place, like he hadn’t lost his composure at all. 

“Dutch needs you. Something about the Gray family.” Charles sounds strange, even toned but meticulously so. 

“Yeah, ‘course he does,” Arthur mumbles, hoarse and quiet from sleep. Tries not to think too hard about how easy it was to thoughtlessly touch Charles with meaning, when doing anything with meaning was like pulling teeth these days. He sits up and runs his hands through his tangled hair, grunting as he catches a bad knot. “Thank you, Charles.”

Charles presses his lips together, watching Arthur almost warily. He nods curtly and turns on his heel, leaving the lean-to empty other than Arthur himself, hunched over and not ready in the least to begin dealing with whatever half-assed scheme Dutch has concocted to swindle two rich families of idiots out of their supposed fortunes. 

Ready or not, Dutch is waiting. Arthur tugs the last of the knots out of his hair and changes his shirt into something he doesn’t mind getting bloodied, and wanders out into the light towards Dutch’s voice.

\--

The camp has been boiling with tension. 

Shoving their noses into this business between the Grays and Braithwaites has proven to be the stupidest shit they’ve ever gotten themselves into. Micah seems to be the easiest scapegoat for everyone, the simplest to pin this brewing disaster onto, but Charles can see that they all know the truth. No one wants to admit that they’re afraid of Dutch, of his thoughtlessness and need for power. His plans are making less sense by the day, and the time between scheming is spent hurting innocent people and taking from the poor. 

Charles hasn’t been a part of the gang for very long, but he thinks of that as a boon. It gives him perspective. _And an out_ , he thinks reflexively. He’d do well to consider that, he thinks as he idly watches people flit about nervously. The camp used to be filled with the sounds of life, but recently it’s seemed quiet and dull. Like speaking too loudly will shatter the tentative moment of peace while they wait for the next blow.

He could leave. No one would blame him; this gang, once so tightly knit, is a nervous horse just moments away from bolting and taking the carriage with it. Charles doesn’t know why he can’t just make himself go.

 _You know exactly why,_ he thinks wryly, _Of course you know._

Charles is hauled up by his arm without warning, and almost lashes out before he realizes it’s just Bill. He still debates pushing him back when he sees Javier and Kieran behind him. They’re all kitted out, and he knows immediately that the hit they’ve been anticipating has come to break bone. 

“Jack is missin’,” Bill huffs, and almost on cue he hears Abigail shouting from near the river. Probably Dutch’s tent, he ventures. “Think that Dutch ‘n them are ‘bouta do somethin’ about it.” Charles brushes Bill’s hand off and reaches for his things before even asking any questions. Figures this is something he doesn’t mind throwing himself into thoughtlessly. He thinks, a bit selfishly, of Arthur and Jack playing together in camp. Of the small boy on Arthur’s hip putting flowers into his uncle’s overgrown hair, tottering around after him at any opportunity. 

“I thought I saw some Braithwaite boys, and Hosea suspects the same,” Kieran explains, the four of them heading towards the sound of Abigail’s voice once Charles has collected his things. “He ain’t been gone too long, but…” Kieran shrugs, looking uncomfortable with voicing any doubts about Jack’s safety. 

Charles puts a hand on his shoulder, gives him a firm nod when Kieran looks over, surprised. “They don’t want to hurt Jack, he’s just a boy. Wouldn’t give them anything but guilt. We’ll find him,” he says, sounding as sure as he can. Kieran smiles, nods right back. Bill snorts in bemusement.

“Think that’s the most I’ve ever heard you talk, Smith.”

Charles grunts. 

“That’s more like it!” Bill chuckles, clapping him on the back. Charles wonders if the nerves are making Bill touchy, since he can’t be trigger-happy quite yet. 

When they reach the small group outside Dutch’s tent, Arthur is already stalking away ahead of Hosea and Dutch. They all look angry, but Arthur is - Arthur looks _murderous_. There’s a fury that seems to have filled him, set his back ramrod straight and schooled his features into a mindless scowl. Charles realizes, not for the first time but with an all-new clarity, that this is the man others see. He has seen the kinder inclinations of Arthur’s character for so long that he sometimes forgets that Arthur became the workhorse for a reason. He’s a massive man, cresting six feet and dense with muscle, covered in scars. Hands that can bend and break with ease, shoulders that effortlessly swallow a shotgun blast. An infamous gunslinger with a bounty of over five thousand dollars hanging over his head, and yet still standing. Arthur has been an outlaw since he was fifteen, Charles remembers suddenly. People fear this man because he is someone who should be feared.

Somehow Charles had forgotten that, strangely enough. He isn’t sure that he’d ever really known it, not like he knew it now. Even in Colter, Charles had thought it mostly boasting. This was no boast - this was ferocity, truer and more primal than Charles had even in himself.

Charles has to remind himself to breathe when Arthur turns and looks at him. Doesn’t even seem to see the other men, just locks eyes with Charles. _This is not the man that I know_ , Charles thinks to himself, but knows that isn’t true. Knows that this is just as much the man he adores as the man who mumbles in his sleep, who sketches flowers and bison and strange rock carvings. Who collects cigarette cards for a stranger. Who could kill Charles with not too much of a fight, if he had to.

Arthur nods to him. He turns forward and keeps moving without breaking his stride even as Bill calls out to Dutch, and it’s like the world bursts back into color as Charles begins to breathe again. It had been barely a moment, and somehow Charles feels like his world has tilted. He’d followed the deer’s trail so closely that he forgot to watch for bears, and the consequences of that were all his own to carry.

Dutch waves them all along, and Charles watches Arthur’s back like he can bore holes into it by willpower alone. _Not so bad a mistake_ , Charles thinks as he ties his hair back and mounts a snorting Taima. Runs his hands down the base of her mane as he murmurs calming words in some attempt to soothe her, though he knows it’s nigh useless.

He glances over at Arthur as Adelaide huffs, and Arthur is staring at him. There’s a break in that mask, a crack in the door that Charles wants desperately to press his fingers into, pry open. Arthur’s fingers twitch around the reins, and then the door closes with a snap and the mask slides right back into place as Arthur leans back in his saddle and click at Adelaide, speeding off.

Charles is not afraid of outlaws, of loss, of dying. He’s certainly not afraid of bears.

\--

They burn the Braithwaite Manor to the ground. 

Arthur stands in front of the burning building as a sobbing Catherine stumbles back through the door of her ruined home. Her sons are dead all around her, and she’s the only soul left alive to wail in grief. He hears the beams beginning to crack, glass shattering somewhere around the back of the house where the first fires they lit are hot enough to burst the windows. 

“Arthur!” Dutch shouts back at him

No matter how close he stands, the heat won’t melt down whatever ice has frozen him over. Arthur backs away, eyes glued until Catherine’s form disappears into the smoke. Adelaide presses into his space, chuffs curiously into his ear. Arthur presses his face into her mane for just a moment before he finally heaves himself back into her saddle and follows the group down the path and off the Braithwaite’s land before the law can come sniffing. 

Arthur swears he can feel the inferno at his back the entire way, never cooling. 

They get Jack back safely, and an air of calm settles over the gang at his return. It’s not real, but it’s a respite from the nervous tension that’s been weighing on them all. He’s glad for it, knows he is. Arthur looks around and wants desperately to be happy along with them, to feel the relief wash over him if only for a moment of peace. The cold little thing that took him over refuses to let him go, making residence in his heart in a way that frightens him. The fear only causes the cold to grip him even tighter.

He knows the others can see it, can feel it. Not all of them - Bill is the same as usual, and Pearson still chats his ear off. But it’s an undercurrent in everything he does. Javier asks him along on a robbery, and gives him an appraising look while they’re crouched in the underbrush.

“You’ve been a real fright recently, Morgan.” He mutters it, looking back at the house quickly.

Arthur twists to glare at him, feels his brow furrowing. “What d’you mean?” 

Javier shrugs, nonchalant while Arthur feels like his heart’s jumped up his throat. “Nothing, really. You’ve just been a right menace.” Javier glances back over, seems to see something in his face. Arthur isn’t sure he wants to know what he sees when he chuckles. “Don’t worry, brother, not saying it’s a bad thing. That’s your whole deal, ain’t it?”

There was a time that such a thing would’ve made Arthur feel good, proud of himself. Like he was doing good by the gang by being a downright danger to the people in his vicinity. Now, it leaves him unsteady on his feet. Leaves him shameful and confused, and the cold in him clenches again in reflex.

No point in thinking now. He’s got a family to protect, after all.

\--

He’s writing in his journal for the first time in a while when Tilly knocks on the wagon, stepping into his lean-to tentatively. “Mr. Morgan?” she says, sounding nervous. Arthur hopes it’s because she doesn’t want to interrupt him and nothing else, but he knows better. He wants to smile at her, to chat for a bit like they used to so often. Arthur’s afraid of the cold, though, afraid of saying something wrong and scaring her off for good. Losing his chance for redemption before he figures out what the hell it is that seems to be shutting out every good thing he’s ever known about himself. The self-loathing is cruel and determined, so Arthur just looks up at her. Gives her a nod and manages not to scowl, as if that’s enough.

“Miss Tilly,” he greets her. “How’re you doin’?” 

Tilly just smiles, holds out a letter for him. “It’s from that Mary,” she says, something sad in the cock of her head as she watches him take it. Arthur holds the letter like it might ignite at any moment, or come to life and try to bite him. Sure feels like it’s biting him, even before he’s opened the damn thing. He looks up at Tilly, and she’s fiddling with her hands like she’s trying to decide on something. He watches a determined look cross her face, and then she’s plopping herself down on his cot and into his space. Tilly rests a hand on his wrist, giving him a squeeze that’s more comforting than he’d know how to admit. 

“Arthur,” she says, and the warmth in her voice is like a balm to his sad little heart. “What’s wrong with you? I know you ain’t feelin’ right. You ain’t been yourself for a while now, and I can see it’s hurtin’ you. And not just you, neither.” She looks almost embarrassed as the last part comes out, her eyes skirting around for just a moment. He follows them to where Charles is by the campfire, Reverend Swanson slurring at him. Charles seems to get fed up and snaps something at Swanson that sends him stumbling away morosely. Arthur chews at the inside of his cheek, and looks away only to find Tilly watching him so fondly it hurts him. 

“I know, Tilly. I been… I dunno, really. Dutch’s been askin’ us all to do bad things, real bad things. Things I wouldn’t do on my own, but Dutch is my - I mean, he’s _Dutch_. What am I s’posed to do, say no?” He scoffs, setting the letter down on his bed and putting a hand over Tilly’s. Anything to feel more of that warmth, to know he hasn’t been given up on. “I was feelin’ real wrong for a while, didn’t know what to do with it. I think I let it go on so long I ain’t feelin’ a thing no more.”

Tilly bumps her shoulder against his, and he chuckles at how much force it has. Strong girl, Miss Tilly - they’re all here for a reason. Arthur would do well to remember that. “It’s never too late, Arthur. Dutch ain’t the boss of you. I know he’s like your father, but even fathers make the wrong choices, yeah? Actually, I’d say they’re pretty dang notorious for it.” Tilly thinks for a moment, looking Arthur over like she’s picking him apart. Arthur thinks it’s a shame he doesn’t know more about what got her here, what makes her so sharp and have so much faith in the good in him. He’s thankful for whatever it is, whatever force gave him a good friend. “You’re a good man, Arthur. I know you can’t see that, but you don’t have to. ‘Cause I see it, and _he_ sees it,” she slides her eyes over to Charles, who is watching them with rapt attention and lowers his eyes when caught. “Whatever that letter from Mary says, don’t you take it to heart. She’s from a whole ‘nother world, she can’t see you the way you need’a be seen.” 

Wrapping her arms around him, Tilly gives him a tight hug. Arthur melts into it, wrapping an arm around to rest against the back of her head. There’s flowers tucked into her braid that he hadn’t noticed, surely from Jack, and it feels like the grip around his heart has loosened just a bit. Tilly stands and ruffles Arthur’s hair with a big smile, giggling when Arthur smacks at her hand good naturedly. “There are things you gotta let go of, to live the way we do. But don’t you let go of the good in your heart, Arthur Morgan. Or you’ll have the wrath of Tilly Jackson at your heels.” She winks at him, walking off with a wave to him over her shoulder. 

Arthur waves back, chuckling. In the wake of Tilly’s kindness, he finds that Mary’s letter is far less discomfiting. He picks it back up and slides his fingers along the soft paper of the envelope, sighing. Now or never, he supposes.

The letter inside has the same cramped, curling handwriting he’s always known. It doesn’t pain him the same way it used to, doesn’t carve into any old aches the way he expects. 

_Why couldn’t you change and be a man and put down all those fantasies that shroud your judgement?_

Wasn’t that just the problem? Arthur knew that he’d done terrible things in his life, and that the worst was surely yet to come. But the ideals that he followed weren’t so wrong that they didn’t have any merit at all. Besides, he wasn’t living under any flights of fancy - Arthur knew exactly what he was, an outlaw and a killer. 

_You're a good man_ , said Tilly’s voice in his mind. Arthur wasn’t sure if he believed that, but he wanted to. He believed in Tilly, and he believed in Charles, and if they could see the good in him, well. Maybe there was something to be made of his gnarled old heart. Arthur could trust in them, for now; maybe that would be enough.

Mary needed help again, and if he were honest he’d say that he didn’t want to flit to her side. He’d done so once, and it had only hurt him to see her again. Had cast a shadow over his faith in himself. Maybe he could get a little closure, though - maybe cutting this cord that’s been dragging him along for so long would help him on the way to mending. 

Maybe he could find himself again, by letting her go for good.

Arthur chews it over for a long time, scrawling out page after page in his journal. Fills it up to nearly the end, only a few sheets left with corners torn off where he’d needed something to leave a note on. By the time he’s done his hand is cramped and aching, and Arthur has come to a decision.

He doesn’t take much to Saint Denis, just a nice shirt and a good rifle alongside his rations and general supplies. He’ll bring a new journal home from the city, so the old one goes under his pillow when he’s sure no one’s looking. The trip will only be around three days, and Dutch waves him off when Arthur tells him of the upcoming absence. 

“Go on ahead, Arthur, I’m not your father,” Dutch chuckles, but the old joke falls flat. Arthur just shrugs, pats Dutch on the shoulder as he passes him to leave. 

“Don’t I know it, old man,” he says, tipping his hat back to look at the clear sky on his head to the horses. “Oh, don’t I.”

He’s tacking up Adelaide when she burrs pleasantly, reaching for something over Arthur’s shoulder. He turns to see Charles, one hand in his pocket and the other feeding the mare a few sugar cubes. 

“Arthur.” Charles nods in greeting, sliding his hand up over Adelaide’s snout when she’s finished her treat with a nicker. They haven’t spoken much the past few days, Arthur afraid of pushing him away will all the foolish nonsense going through his mind and Charles seeming fine with giving him some space. 

“Charles,” he replies, turning his eyes back to the task at hand. “Knew you were the one givin’ her all that sugar. She keeps givin’ you the lookover whenever you’re around.”

“Sounds like someone else I know,” says a voice at his other shoulder, and Arthur jerks at the billet strap he was tightening in surprise. Sadie cackles as Adelaide snorts at the discomfort and swings her head around to nip at him. 

“Fuck - hey!” Arthur narrowly dodges, stumbling back and into Charles who catches him before he hits the ground. Charles’ hands are warm and heavy, a satisfying weight where they grasp at his arm and shoulder. He’s disappointed when they fall away quickly. “Damnit Sadie, the hell’s your problem?”

“Ha! Nothing, grumpy. Am I not allowed to make fun of you or something?” She hands him a jacket, the one he’d asked her to mend a few weeks ago. Arthur had clean forgotten about it, runs his fingers over the soft blue fabric with a little half-smile. 

“No, you’re not. Fuckin’ nuisance, is what you are.” He looks up at her, and they both split into grins. She reminds Arthur of a young John, if he’d been actually fun to be around. Arthur finds he doesn’t mind the idea of a sister. “Thank you, Sadie. This is some fine handiwork.” 

She socks him in the shoulder, clearly pleased. It takes significant effort for Arthur not to wince. “Yeah, whatever. Quit tearing your pretty boy clothes, or even I won’t be able to do nothin’ about it. Ride safe, Arthur. Bye, Charles.” Sadie socks Charles’ shoulder too as she saunters away, shouting out to Bill who seems to wither at her very presence. 

Arthur and Charles share a look, and both start laughing. 

“That woman’s a damn hurricane.” 

“That she is,” Charles agrees. He watches as Arthur finds a place for the jacket, wanting to keep it relatively clean. “Where are you headed?”

“Saint Denis,” Arthur says, checking the closures on the saddlebags. “Should only be a couple’a days, if this weather holds. You need somethin’?”

When Arthur looks back at him, Charles looks contemplative. Like he wants to ask something else. He just ends up crossing his arms, shaking his head slowly. “No,” he says, then again with more surety, “No, thank you.”

Arthur nods, shrugging off the exchange. If Charles wanted to tell him something, he’d say it - there’s no wheedling anything out of the man. Pulling himself into the saddle, Arthur stops himself when Charles’ hand lands on his leg. It’s on his knee, technically, but Charles’ thumb slides just so up the inner seam of his jeans and Arthur can’t seem to focus on much else. 

“Be safe,” Charles says, looking up at him inscrutably. 

“Sure,” Arthur says, trying not to sound like he’s being strangled.

The hand squeezes just so, and Arthur tries not to think about how that slides up and Charles turns and leaves him behind with his thoughts and his leg _burning_. 

Saint Denis awaits. And as does Charles, on the way back home.


	3. vigilance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A stalwart protector. A brick wall with cracking mortar, light shining through. A soft-bellied creature covered in sharp spines to keep itself safe and hidden.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i meant to have a bit more happen in this chapter but i was having too much fun writing arthur and mary so now you get a cliffhanger instead :) hope everyone had a wonderful weekend
> 
> edit 7/23/19 - i posted the draft by accident, now is the completed version of this chapter!

“Arthur! Arthur, up here!”

Mary Linton hangs over the balcony of the Hotel Grand, bundled up in her checkered dress against the afternoon chill. Arthur stutters to a stop, waving up at her and mouthing something to himself that she can’t hear. It's nostalgic even just to see him again, his face barely visible against the bustle of the road below. She hasn’t been so happy to see him since they were young, and still fools for each other. 

He’s still handsome, she thinks, in a rugged sort of way. Mary’s sure she’ll never really know how rugged he can be.

“You came!” she shouts down, awed.

“Yeah, I came.” Arthur chuckles, shrugging and gesturing around him as if it were obvious. Guess it was, considering he was standing outside her hotel. Arthur Morgan in the flesh, yet again. She can hardly believe it. “Uh, what’d you need?”

“Wait there, I’m coming straight down,” Mary says, can hardly keep her hands still on account of her excitement. Something about the last time she’d seen him, what Jamie had told her of his cooled temperament and kind words, it was making her hopeful. 

Maybe, with the years piling onto him and the glory days gone past, he’d run away with her. Get away from all of this, and close to each other once more. It's a silly thought, hardly based on what she knows to be true about the both of them. In that moment, she's excited enough to let the flight of fancy envelop her if only for the familiar weight of it. Like a mother's shawl, soft and scented like pure comfort.

Mary rushes down the stairs, bumping into a couple and stammering a hasty apology without even bothering to halt herself. The more time that stretches between her knowing that Arthur is there and her actually seeing him just leaves her tauntingly nervous, unsure about what direction their interactions would swing. Her heart pounds in her chest, and she skitters to a stop to collect herself before stepping out the door. 

He’s right there. So close she could reach out and touch him.

“Arthur,” she breathes. His smile is small, embarrassed. 

“Hello, Mary.”

“You came.”

“Sure,” he says, tipping his father’s hat down to hide his face like he always has. “Whenever you call for me, I come.” The words send a thrill through her, but Arthur’s mouth twists a bit like the words don't taste quite right on his tongue. Mary wonders, not for the first time, if he thinks of her as a fond memory or a bitter one. If she’s a pretty old photograph or a ghost that just won’t leave him be. 

“I’m sorry,” she sighs, before she can think better of it. “Thank you for coming, Arthur. I’m so sorry because I know you won’t like this, but I just didn’t know what else to do.” Once she’s started she can’t seem to stop, staring at her hands as they twist and pick at each other like caged birds. “I know Daddy wasn’t kind to you - “

Arthur scoffs, lips pressing into a hard line as he realizes where she’s going. “That’s sure one way of puttin’ it,” he grouses, hands shoving deep into his pockets.

“ - but surely you cannot hate a man for the, the sin of loving his daughter. For wanting better for her than, than,” and suddenly continuing this line of thought seems a terrible idea, because Arthur steps toward her, brows knitting together. 

“Than me?”

“Than the choices you make,” she amends, and knows it’s hardly any better. 

“What choice did I have? Did I ever have?” Arthur shakes his head, letting out a huff.

“Oh, I know. You had to live by your _code_ ,” she sneers, and hates herself for it. But she hates him more for it, that some code of honor could possibly mean more than love or a future or any of the things she wanted so dearly. Is it so selfish to want someone to change for you? When the life they lead is downright dirty, indisputably wrong? The old anger bubbles in her chest, and Mary is ashamed of the way she always ends up whistling like a kettle at him. She can never seem to help herself, foot halfway to her mouth the second she starts speaking.

Arthur makes a frustrated noise, digging the toe of his boot into the cobblestone like maybe the ground would swallow him up and he wouldn’t have to deal with her accusations. Mary doesn’t blame him - she had no intention of rehashing the same argument they’d been having their whole lives. She just doesn’t understand him. Doesn’t understand how he doesn’t see Hell beneath that cobblestone and fear it’s flame, how he takes pleasure in the very things that keep her up at night.

"I'm not trying to accuse you of anything, Arthur. It's just never made any sense, no matter what I learn about you. Doesn't help that I feel I know more from the wanted posters than I do from you." Mary sighs, deflating in the wake of her own honesty. Feels better than the anger, at least. Arthur sucks in a breath, and she watches as he seems to steel his nerve for a long and tense moment, fingers curling into his palms.

“You’ve always had a family,” he says, softer than she thinks she’s ever heard him. Arthur runs a hand over his face, a deep exhaustion washing over his expression so clearly she almost reaches out to touch him. Thinks better of it, and thanks God she did. “You’ve always been well off, always had what you needed. You never had to fear for nothin’, Mary Linton,” and the way he says her name stings. She knows now that she is no fond photograph, no. Mary is the thing that keeps him up at night, that haunts him terribly. A wound you don’t let anyone else touch for fear of further infection.

“When my mother died, that was- You don’t get another one, y’know?” Arthur doesn’t look at her, instead hunts through his pockets for a cigarette. “Fathers, they’re different. Most’a the time they don't even mean to have you,” he chuckles, derisive, “And they hardly do any of the real work anyway. Mothers, though. That’s what family is, where it comes from.”

They're silent for a long moment. Mary gets the feeling that Arthur is collecting his thoughts, dredging up things he surely hasn't thought about for quite a while. “Beatrice… She died when you were young, right? Six or seven?” Mary vaguely remembers the story, no real detail but enough for her whole chest to ache. 

“Six,” Arthur nods. Lights the cigarette and breathes it in like it can save him. Maybe it can, Mary thinks. Maybe she should try to let loose a little, see if it saves her too. “Wasn’t nobody’s fault. Sometimes people get sick, and sick people die. That’s the way of the world.

“Good ol’ Lyle lived by the bottle, and it sure as shit cost him. Him gettin’ arrested was the best thing that ever happened to me, wasn’t so busy gettin’ knocked around that I couldn’t do nothin’. They hung ‘im a couple years later, while I was in town stealin’ some food. I was - shit, fourteen I think. Small and quick enough that I could duck in and out without gettin' an ear snagged by the law, so I snagged his hat the second the old bastard went through the gallows floor." He paused again, mouth working like he could still taste the dust in the air from that day. "A year later, Dutch caught me tryin’ to steal his wallet. He took me in, though not without tryin’ to break my hand first.” Arthur coughs, and Mary can hear clearly that he’s covering up a laugh for her sake. She can’t decide if he’s a sick bastard himself, or if there’s no way to deal with these things except for laughing at them.

Maybe the point is, there’s no way for her to know. She simply never would. 

They look at each other, Arthur leaned up against the fancy hotel she’s staying in like he hadn't robbed places twice as grand. Mary with her dainty hands folded together, the worst thing she'd ever seen being a cold and rigid Barry Linton when he passed peacefully in his sleep. Arthur's jacket is nice, patched up in more than a few spots with steady hands. His skin is marred from things she can scarcely imagine, things Mary would never see in her life and wouldn’t survive if she did. 

“We was never gonna end up together, Mary,” and even though she knows it’s coming it still stings so bad she sniffles, biting back tears she's shed far too many times over the same thing left unsaid. Arthur looks like the sound wounds him, holds out a hand to her that she gladly takes. He pulls her into a hug that smells like campfire smoke and the wilds outside of the walls of her life. Places she’d only ever seen blurring through the train window. “I can’t exist in your world ‘cause that world ain’t never wanted me. And I don’t want that world ‘cause it chewed me up and spit me right back out. It wasn’t that I didn’t love you. You understand that, Mary?”

“I understand that, Arthur.” She wraps her arms around him tight, burying her face in his collar. “I know you did.” Mary leans back to look up at him, see how his stubble is growing out just so and his hair is long enough that she could almost braid it. There’s a notch in his top lip, still healing, and without thinking she runs her thumb over it gently. Arthur doesn’t jerk away, but it’s a near thing, and she pulls her hand back swiftly.

“Oh, sorry, does it hurt?” 

“No, no,” Arthur shakes his head, looking a bit panicked. And turning red, she notices, straight from his cheeks to his collar, and Mary knows what that means. It's something she realizes almost in awe, her mouth splitting in a slow grin. Mary has little left of Arthur Morgan but the wedding ring he gave her a lifetime ago, and a familiarity with his tells that dwells so deeply in her it's buried in her bones. 

Mary knows exactly what that means.

“Who is it?” she asks, suddenly gleeful. Like the knowledge that Arthur could be happy in his own world was plenty to make her happy, too. Giddy, even. Arthur grumbles something under his breath, very deliberately not looking at her as she twists around to meet his gaze. “Arthur Morgan, who is she? Tell me!” Mary demands, nearly cackling as he turns an even brighter shade at her insistence.

Arthur opens his mouth. Closes it. Squints at her like she’d be the death of him someday. Mumbles a name so quiet she leans in to hear it. 

“Huh? Did you say- “

“Charles,” he blurts, sudden and directly in her ear. Mary jerks back instinctively, and then processes the name slowly but surely.

“Charles,” she repeats. Arthur nods, once. Curt.

They stare each other down.

“I knew it!” Mary quite nearly shouts it, smacks him in the chest with a wild laugh. It's earning them a few looks but Mary is so smug she can hardly contain it. Arthur grunts, grabbing at her hands so she doesn’t smack him again. 

“Damned wild woman,” he mutters, shaking his head. Mary bounces on her feet when she can't break out of his grasp, completely ignoring his hard stare of exasperation. Real tough guy, Arthur, but he's not so scary when he's ripe as a tomato and looking fit to burst.

“Arthur, I knew it! Do you remember before we were goin’ together when -”

“Yes, Mary.”

“- I caught you with the rancher’s boy, during the auction, and you -”

“Mary, _please_.”

“- had your hand right on his buttons and you, you,” she almost loses herself laughing, can see Arthur starting to crack a smile despite his embarrassment. “God, you told me you were fixin’ them for him. And I bought it! Wiped your mouth and everything, and I didn’t suspect a thing until a few years later.” 

Arthur’s face is buried in one hand, the other still resting around her waist as naturally as it always had. As close as they were pressed, as indecent as such a closeness is considered, it still felt friendly. Like the weight of lost love had finally lifted off them, and they could just be people who cared about each other. No expectations, for the first time in a long while. 

“Please, don’t remind me. Just ‘cause you never did stupid things as a kid don’t mean you need’a bring up my follies.”

“I loved you,” she says, but it’s so fond that it’s hardly a jab. He pokes her in the side anyway, a small retribution that she allows him with naught but a snicker. “Arthur, really. I’m happy for you. All I ever wanted was for you to really have someone.”

Arthur hums, thoughtful but clearly grateful nonetheless. He tilts his hat down with his free hand, looking around them sort of skittishly. “I think helpin’ your fool father would be better for my delicate sensibilities than goin’ on about feelings any longer,” he sighs, straightening up and giving her a final reassuring squeeze. “C’mon, Mary. Where’s the ol’ patriarch gotten off to now?”

“Oh, Arthur,” she chides with a laugh, letting him help her up onto his horse. “You know sarcasm is beneath you.”

\--

Arthur gives himself a headache, the way he swings between good and terrible so swiftly. So simply, like it’s just a switch he needs to flip. Some part of him hollows out, and fills back up like a lung when the terrible thing he finds himself doing is over.

He doesn’t mean to. Arthur beats Ashton to death for the pretty green brooch, and all he can think is, _I didn’t mean to_. 

He finds a place for the wagon and the body, somewhere they won’t be found for a long while. Arthur washes himself in one of the little streams outside the city, the cool water grounding whatever part of him had drifted away. He clears his hands and face of the blood spatters he can feel drying to his skin, and feels like a human again instead of some strange beast wearing a mask to infiltrate the life of a man named Arthur. He doesn’t know what happened to him, what line was crossed that made him more animal than man. Maybe it was a culmination of so many little things that he couldn’t keep track of the hurt anymore. An act of observance that became an immersion into unbridled chaos. 

In his bones, Arthur knows that he had never been inherently bad. Set a little astray, sure - he was born to one outlaw and raised by another, there was hardly a chance that he was ever going to end up an honest man. But unlawful men weren't bad men, not to him. Bad men were murderers and cultists, people without morals to keep them along a determined path. Killing in defense, stealing from those who should be giving anyway, that had always been Arthur's way of life. The bit in his mouth that kept him from biting down too hard. Kept him from shattering teeth with the unhampered force of his bite. Dutch had been the one to teach him that, had been an idol of control and sensible action. There had been a time that Hosea would say, _Don't get too wild, now. You watch where Dutch draws the line and you never pass over it._ Arthur was molded from clay in Dutch's hands, a stray dog that needed taming.

Arthur wants to blame Dutch for sending him out like a warhound, for putting him on the front lines until he broke. But Arthur knows he always had a choice - loyalty excuses no delusions, no matter the intent. Good intentions don’t mean shit when you’re standing over the bodies, and Arthur knows that as well as anyone. Feels it branded into his skin when the ripples in the water slow and he can see his own face staring back at him like a stranger.

Dutch didn’t make him cold, but he was the shepherd to a foolish flock. Arthur went cold when he knew he didn’t have the strength to break from the herd. 

_Blessed are the peacemakers_ , he thinks with a wry smile towards the sky. 

\--

“Where’s your father?”

Mary jumps at the sound of his voice, Arthur striding towards her. He’d been gone quite a while, and he looked harried - she doesn’t know what that means, so she just doesn’t think about it. There’s no use in dwelling, not on things that Mary knows full well she had no capacity to understand. Why break the tentative truce they've finally formed, after all these years? Arthur will always be Arthur. Mary will never know what that entails. 

“I don’t know,” she says with a shrug. She could explain their shouting match, the things her father had called her and accused her of. There’s no use in that, either. Mary scrubs a hand over her face instead, feeling grimy and exhausted. 

Arthur hums, looking down at her with a pinch in his brow. “Do you want me to go find him again?” 

“No, not particularly.” Mary shrugs again, unsure of what else to do with herself. Her fingers drop into her lap, pick at the pinched edges of her dress. She’s so tired of idleness, even the bustling city feeling like it’s closing in around her. 

She needs something new, something distracting. She also just so happens to be with the perfect person to give her a little taste of something she could never do on her own. 

Funny, how fate works.

“Arthur,” she starts, then falters. Was it too much? Would Arthur only do it out of pity?

“Mary,” he replies, tilting his hat back a bit to look at her curiously. She watches Arthur search for something in her face, and wonders what he could possibly find there other than a need to lie down and forget that the world around her is still bustling on. How wise does violence make a man? Does it dull the senses, or does it sharpen the mind? Turmoil has only ever made the edges of her thoughts seem hazy and intangible, but Mary hardly had the constitution for it. She gets the feeling that Arthur could've been born a servant girl, or a grave digger, and he would still be durable as stone.

“Arthur,” she says again, this time gathering her nerve and forging ahead. “Can we do something? Anything, doesn’t have to be fanciful. You’ve already done enough for me today, I don’t mean to ask too much, but I need - I need to not be - “ 

Mary gestures around her, hands waving. Arthur chuckles as he watches her fumble to explain herself. 

“You city folk. You get all uppity when the walls start closin’ in but never think to just go where there ain’t any walls.” Arthur holds a hand out to her, which she takes, and he pulls her to her feet.

“Take me on a ride, then. Get me out of this city for a little while. I think I’ll go mad if I stay much longer.” Mary sniffs, brushing off her skirts as Arthur whistles for his horse.

The mare is beautiful, a regal-looking Arabian with not a speck on her white coat. Her long mane is lined with tiny braids and beading, and while Mary knows Arthur to be a gentler man than he appears she somehow doubts they’re his handiwork. 

“Her name is Adelaide,” he says as Mary rubs the mare’s nose, getting a little nicker in reward. Arthur hands her handful of tiny, speckled mushrooms from one of the saddlebags. “Go on, those are her favorite. Charles keeps - hm,” Arthur halts, slanting his gaze over to her as Mary cracks a teasing smile at the mention of the mystery man. Adelaide sniffs at Mary’s closed fist, and she opens her fingers to let the horse at her treats. “Kept givin’ her sugar cubes, and now she’s spoiled rotten. She’ll like you plenty if you give her some of those, though. You’re easy, ain’t you girl,” he says fondly, running a hand through the base of her mane.

Mary grazes her fingers over the wooden beads, realizing as she looks closer that they have small figures engraved into them. Suns and moons, birds and deer. They’re small enough that they go unnoticed at first glance, but they’re beautiful. “Are these Charles’ work, as well?” she ventures, picking up one of the braids to look closer at a small carving of a fish with minuscule but defined scales. 

Arthur glances over, and Mary watches as his whole face softens . His lips curl up just so, the lines around his eyes creasing with so distinct a fondness that it is unmistakable. “Yes,” he says, so quietly she barely hears him. The expression is gone within a moment, disappearing so fast Mary almost wonders if she imagined it. Arthur clears his throat, and she only knows it really did happen by the pink dusting the top of Arthur’s ears, his nose. “Yeah, that’s all him. He’s a big man, Charles, got hands bigger’n mine. You’d never believe that he made ‘em, if you seen him.” 

_You’re quite lucky, Charles_ , Mary thinks, looking up at the sky as if somehow her thoughts will reach the man wherever he may be. Whatever nooks and crannies that gang of theirs crawls into to vanish from the world’s view. 

Arthur is not a gentle man, but he has always been a kind one. Mary had never known anything like his love. She’d been married, sure, and happily so. Barry was wonderful to her, and he’d been the right man for her. He was nothing like Arthur, though - no one ever could be. Whom else could carry the world for so long and still always offer a hand to help you up? Who could be so tender against all expectation, could speak honest kindnesses in a voice of gravel? Mary had always adored Arthur, no matter their differences, and it was because she was fully aware that there were no other men like him. Never would be.

Holding out a hand, Arthur helps Mary up into the saddle behind him as he crooks a smile. Mary returns it easily and leaps up, suddenly nervous to leave the city but positive that she’s safe with Arthur. Something different will be good for her, and she knows it. Anything to derail her mind from it's current trajectory.

Arthur is strong and solid when she wraps her arms around him for balance. A stalwart protector. A brick wall with cracking mortar, light shining through. A soft-bellied creature covered in sharp spines to keep itself safe and hidden. Charles had better be grateful for what he has, because Arthur’s love is no small gift. 

The second they are clear of the sights and smells of Saint Denis, Mary feels alive. She lets out a whoop as Arthur speeds up on the open roads, Adelaide in a steady run that clearly keeps the mare pleased and alert. The air is clean and cool in the fading day, filling Mary’s lungs with a sense of open-aired freedom. Her eyes are clenched shut against the wind but the sensation is still wonderful, marvelous.

Here, she is not confined by a single wall. Not a single brick. Is that freedom? Mary can understand why some think it is, a wild little thing in her heart singing at the lack of constraints upon her. For just one moment, she is completely free and careless as any mindless creature can possibly be. 

A hand closes over hers, squeezing hard to get her attention, and Mary opens her eyes and looks around them in surprise as Adelaide swerves hard around a sharp turn. 

There's a wagon at the crossroads, a group of men shouting after them unintelligibly. A few have guns in their hands, and about three men already on horseback tear after Arthur and her in pursuit. Mary doesn't know what's happening, but the free feeling in her drops heavy into her gut as she knows that something is wrong. Arthur's hands are both back on the reins, completely focused as he steers them expertly out of the plains and into somewhere with some tree coverage. They'll need to lose their pursuers, she realizes, and there's no chance of that if they don't have something to hide in. 

"O'Driscolls," Arthur says suddenly, slowing down only slightly as they take a rougher trail through the tall trees. "Dutch and Colm, their head man, have somethin' of a feud. Colm's boys must've been tryin' to rob some folks, got lucky enough to have me cross their paths instead of some poor rich sod." Looking around quickly, Arthur pulls Adelaide to a stop and urges Mary to slide off onto the ground. Her legs tremble, just so, but she is ready to do whatever needs done. Whatever she can do, measly thought it may be. "We've lost 'em for a second, but I can't fight with you there. They'll aim straight for you, the bastards."

"So, what do you want me to do?" Mary is breathless, and she grips at her skirts as they sink into the mud around her. 

"Get into the trees, hide for a while. Run back into Saint Denis if I ain't back within an hour for you." Arthur turns his horse around, face hardening into a different man. A man Mary never cared to know, a man she still doesn't care to. It only instills fear in her, the husk he becomes in that moment. No warm light, no joviality. Just Arthur's face and the hard line of his straight back, hollowed like a reed. "You stay safe, Mary. If you doubt anything, don't move. I'm - I'm real sorry, for gettin' you involved in this for nothing." A flash of desperation crosses his face, lighting up the dark cellar that he'd momentarily become. "Stay safe." Arthur goes dark again just as quickly, and rides off just as the sound of hoof beats reaches her senses.

So, Mary listens. Mary runs. Mary hides. 

She hears a struggle somewhere in the distance, but it’s impossible to tell what has happened.

She hears a shot and a holler, but from whom she could never say.

Mary waits in the brush for a long time, well into the dark, and Arthur never comes back for her. 

Mary prays, and prays, and prays.


	4. obedience

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How does he love someone covered in blood without getting it all over himself?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> its FINALLY done!! this was a monster of a chapter and i already broke off a few scenes at the end to move into the next one, so i hope you enjoy! a bit of introspection before shit pops off
> 
> if you like folk music, i listened almost exclusively to these songs while writing this work  
> little sadie - crooked still  
> i-89 (spotify singles version) - i'm with her  
> big iron - marty robbins

Arthur is gone for six days when Charles manages to earn himself a new, bloody puncture in his torso.

Charles had been fine for the first few days, everything perfectly and tediously normal. Arthur is gone from camp often, usually with far less warning than they’d had this time around. There’s plenty to do other than pine, food stores that needed filling and chores that needed done. He’s always been a man to keep himself busy, and so Charles helps out around the camp during the day doing odd jobs and the usual tasks. The mornings feel bereft without Arthur, being used to their intertwined routines, so Charles rides out for a few hours at dawn and dusk to scout for trails. No intruders, and no food.

On the fourth day, he finds the bison herd. 

It’s been over two months since he and Arthur took down that first bison, and the poachers along with it. The meat and fat had lasted them a long while, the organs and bones now all tanned and fashioned into tools and utensils. It would be fine to take another down now, wouldn’t harm the herd and wouldn’t go to waste. It’s a dangerous job for one man, though, so Charles sets it in the back of his mind and heads back to camp to mull it over. Formulate a plan, make sure he’s being level headed. 

\--

“I’m a little worried about Arthur.” 

Charles looks over his shoulder, the hay bale in his hands thudding heavily onto the ground. Sadie is grooming her Turkoman, looking at Charles and chewing at the corner of her mouth. Charles walks towards her, picking hay out of his hair. 

“Why is that?” he asks, after a long pause. There’s a small handful of little wild carrots in one of his pouches, and Charles offers them to the horse. Bob takes them gratefully, after a curious sniff. “It’s only been a few days. You know he gets distracted, sometimes.”

Often. More often than not, actually. Charles thinks it better to keep that to himself.

“Sure, but not when he’s made other plans. He told me he’d take me to hunt that big gator, the second he got back. Told Mary-Beth they’d case a bank, too.” Sadie huffs, tugging at a particularly difficult knot in Bob’s mane. The horse hardly seems to notice, munching away as he is. “He wouldn’t get caught up over Mary, of all things.”

“Mary?” Charles hasn’t heard the name before, combing through any memories that weren’t Mary-Beth. Sadie wears her feelings so openly it’s ridiculous, and the timidity in her expression forms a crease in Charles’ brow. 

“Er, yeah. That lady he almost got hitched to, way back when?” 

Charles just hums in acknowledgement, thoughtful. Arthur had never mentioned her, but why would he? Especially if it was a failed engagement, assuming Sadie’s phrasing was accurate. “Do you know why he went to see her? Anything could have held him up, but I’ll admit I’ve been a bit doubtful, too.” Bob nudges his nose against Charles’ hand, and he gives the horse a fond ruffle. “Law is strong ‘round here, especially with all this Cornwall nonsense.”

“No clue, but she sent him a letter. That’s just what Tilly told me, though. She also told me…” Sadie trails off, chewing at the inside of her lip indecisively. Charles doesn’t mind waiting for her to formulate her thoughts, his own partially occupied by the idea of someone having once been Arthur’s. It’s not surprising but it’s something that hadn’t crossed his mind before, something he had to mull over to comprehend. 

Sadie leans her arm onto her horse, putting herself into Charles’ field of vision. “She told me that he spent that whole day scribbling away in that journal of his,” she says, and Charles nods. He’d watched Arthur the whole time, deeply curious about the hidden pages. Arthur spoke without thought and with plenty of care, and there wasn’t much that Charles wouldn’t give to know what the man thought worthy of writing about. When Charles had seen him writing page after page of thoughts, it gave him an intimate awareness that he had no idea what went through Arthur’s mind. What went unvoiced, stayed silent and locked away in that confounding mind of his. 

“Tilly saw him leave the journal at camp. And since I think something happened, something out of Arthur’s control,” Sadie explains, “You should peek in his journal to see if he mentioned doing anything else on his little adventure in the city, just to make sure we ain’t overreacting ‘fore taking this to Dutch.”

Charles balks, staring at her blankly. “You want me to read Arthur’s journal.”

“I want you to skim Arthur’s journal to help us figure out if he’s safe,” Sadie corrects, as if it were somehow justifiable. 

He scoffs, shaking his head. “Sadie, this isn’t reading Pearson’s letters-”

“I never-”

“Yes, you did, and that’s harmless. That’s mail, that’s already for someone else’s eyes.” Charles scrubs a hand over his face, frustrated. “You know Arthur, he never lets anyone see in that thing. I’m not going to _skim through it._ ” He turns from Sadie to heft another hay bale into his hands, vastly preferring his chores over their conversation. Sadie follows behind him, bull-headed as ever. 

“Come on, Charles, just think about it. You’re the only one he wouldn’t beat to shit for it, anyway.” She grumbles the last part, her arms crossed over her chest like a petulant child. It grates on Charles’ nerves, setting him on edge and clipping his tone. 

“That’s really why you want me to do it?”

Sadie sneers, incredulous. “Don’t act stupid, it don’t suit you. We both know why you should be the one to go through it.”

“Why don’t you just spell it out for me, Sadie?” Charles stares her down, rigid and frustrated. Her quip leaves some part of him raw and exposed, a wound unbandaged far before it was finished healing. Because Charles doesn’t know - he’s had a sneaking suspicion, but nothing had ever been made obvious enough for it to ever feel like something tangible. Charles knows that he wants Arthur, knows it so well that it’s started to permeate everything he is. He’s so aware of his own desire that it’s near suffocating. Arthur seems to feel the same in certain moments, his eyes hooded and trained on Charles like he can’t see anything else around him. Yet as soon as Charles feels sure, their lives seem to fall apart around them and feelings fall to the wayside when in contest with mortal peril. How does he think about love and adoration when the man who is the object of those feelings is standing atop an oil wagon with a train barreling towards him? How can he think about entangling himself with someone when they’re so caught up in their sense of self-hatred that they throw themselves at death like kindling on a fire?

How does he love someone covered in blood without getting it all over himself?

Their world is an ugly one, rough and unforgiving. Arthur is a difficult man with a long and winding past, and Charles is just the same. Nothing is ever sure in a life like theirs - Charles fears to even dream of being sure of something like Arthur wanting him in return. It seems so flimsy a wish some days. Other days, it seems like the only thing that Charles has to hold onto. 

He isn’t sure. He doesn’t know how to be. Sadie poking at his poorly-concealed feelings just makes him want to lash out like a cornered dog, in search of something easily understood.

“You’re the only person that makes Arthur soft,” Sadie says, and Charles almost startles when her hand slides over his shoulder. It’s comforting enough that he doesn’t smack her away immediately. “He’s a different person ‘round you. A better one, I reckon. And I know that because I ain’t in the middle, lookin’ at these things. I’m lookin’ at it from the outside. I been married before, I know what that dance looks like. That shit you pull when everyone’s all in and no one knows it yet.”

Sadie smiles at him, almost sad. “I know you wanna let Arthur have his space, and that’s sweet. But I have this feeling in my gut that something’s real wrong, and I can tell that you been havin’ the same thoughts. There’s just not much else we can do without causin’ a fuss, y’know?

“Just give it some thought. Don’t have to be today, don’t have to be tomorrow. Maybe he’ll roll up for lunch and we can all start breathin’ again.” Sadie laughs softly, her hand dropping away and leaving Charles’ shoulder feeling cold and bereft. 

“Alright,” Charles says finally, quiet and kinder in tone. “I’ll consider it.”

“Thank you, Charles.” He nods to her, distracted now with a burden of choice that he had no interest in bearing but took upon his shoulders nonetheless. 

Sadie leaves him alone on the fringes of the camp, the river lapping at the shore and the horses not too far behind him. People talk and laugh and bicker, Jack chattering away happily to his mother. Pearson is shouting somewhere, and Miss Grimshaw is beginning to shout back. 

Charles finishes his chores, slow and contemplative. He washes his hair and plaits a feather and a bead for safety into it. Cleans his gun with meticulous care, though it doesn’t need it much. Packs a bag of supplies. Brings Taima a treat and tacks her up. 

He’s going to find the bison. When he returns, Charles hopes that he will have a better answer to his own questions. Maybe a clearer course of action. 

Taima burrs happily when Charles mounts up, his hands sliding into her mane in search of some little comfort. It grounds him, centers him. 

Charles rides out, and does not look back.

\--

He finds the herd within the day, grazing in a valley with a ridge overlooking them perfectly. It feels like a blessing, a gift from the creatures themselves for the careful balance struck between human and beast. 

Charles sets up camp on the ridge and drinks coffee instead of tea, with just a bit of honey. There is no one around for miles to pass judgement and so Charles feels free to miss Arthur however he pleases, sipping on a bitter drink and thinking idly of the planes of Arthur’s face. The unkempt edges of his beard when they go on a hunting trip, the creases beside his eyes that fold in concentration and earnest focus. Charles thinks of holding him, of pressing kisses to his skin, of breathing in the smell of pomade and leather. Thinks of being held in return, kissed and touched and wanted. 

He thinks until he can bear it no more, and when the silence becomes oppressive he turns to sleep.

When Charles wakes, he plans to take down one of the bison and spend the day preparing it. For one man to get everything dressed and ready to take back to camp, it would take well into the afternoon. He could be back at camp by nighttime and bring dinner along with him. It’s enough time to think uninterrupted, something that Charles desperately needs. He doesn’t spend time alone the way that he used to, and the constant presence of another being is wearing on him in a way he hadn’t really realized. 

Everything goes well, until it doesn’t anymore. 

Charles circles the herd and gets them moving, so he can use the momentum to get a clean hit and still be sure that the felled bison won’t be trampled in the ensuing panic. He’s lining up his rifle when another shot rings out, striking the adjacent bison in the flank. It roars, swerving as it’s leg gives out and bodily tumbling into the bison nearest to Charles. 

Taima staggers, trying to turn out of the way, and she manages to save herself. Her rider is not so lucky. The bison swings it’s head with a bellow and Charles shouts as the horn strikes into his ribs. The skin splits like water, and Charles cannot hear the crack of his rib but he can certainly feel it. The momentum means that, despite being closer to a graze than a true impalement, Charles has still been thoroughly gored. 

Taima takes them out of the valley and over the ridge before she starts to slow, her breath huffing and eyes flicking about nervously. There’s a man riding towards them, gun drawn, and Charles assumes that he is who shot first. 

“That was foolish,” Charles calls. Apparently, getting gored was not enough excitement for the day. The man seems to be cocking his gun, but Charles was thankfully unharmed on the side of his shooting arm. The man is little more than a silhouette as Charles has cleared leather and fires off two shots. 

The man is dead as Charles reaches him, his cheekbone and part of the eye socket blown away. It’s grisly, but Charles was ready to sink himself elbow-deep into the entrails of a bison. It’s not much more than he was already anticipating. The other shot is blooming red on the man’s shoulder and is the impact that sent the man off his horse and to the ground. The horse is gone now, and Charles mourns the loss of the whatever the saddlebags held. 

There’s no chance of identifying the man, but from his equipment Charles guesses that he’s just a poacher or bandit. Saw the color of Charles’ skin and wanted to cause trouble for him, or just did for the simple sake of the Charles' own saddlebags. It makes something in Charles boil, but all the anger just channels into his bleeding side. 

His camp is not too far past the dead man, and Charles rides on with no remorse. _This is killing in necessity,_ he thinks to himself, _and that is the only kind that can truly be justified._ It doesn’t make his stomach stop roiling, but it calms his mind enough for Charles to focus.

He has rudimentary first aid at the camp, alcohol to clean the wound and fresh bandaging to at least staunch the bleeding. There’s no way he can get back to camp without something to keep his side from opening back up, to keep him from tearing at clotting vessels with every beat of Taima’s hooves.

Charles wants to sew himself up, but he can see small pieces of bone through the exposed tissue and knows that there is more breakage than can be healed with time. He doesn’t just need to be sewn back shut, he needs medical care, and the awareness of that fact forces Charles into expedience. 

Pack up his camp, carefully and cautiously. Keep an eye on the time, so he is not riding vulnerable at night. Find a large enough step on the ridge that he can mount Taima without opening the wound back up. 

Ride home, and do not think of how easy it is for a man alone to die. Do not think of Arthur.

Lenny is guarding the camp, shouting out a warning as Taima leads herself down the trail. Charles is breathing heavily, head swimming with the pain that laces through his body at each hard step his horse takes. He doesn’t speak at first, not having processed the sound of the man’s voice. It hadn’t hurt so badly at first, but it was nearing night and Charles’ lungs felt like they were rattling after the hours of rough terrain had taken their toll. 

His head bobs with exhaustion, and when Charles picks it back up its because there are hands on his legs and arms to ease him out of Taima’s saddle. 

“He’s in shock, I bet,” says a woman’s voice on the left. The ground feels strange beneath Charles’ feet, solid and unfamiliar. “That’s a lot of padding, lot of blood soaked through. Mary-Beth, you get some water boiling and find the sewing kit. John, get me bandages and whiskey.” The hands urge Charles forward, and slowly the awareness of being touched leads to an awareness of the world. The pain sinks slowly back into his numbed body like the sun into the horizon, bright and burning. “I need to look at this on an actual cot, not the ground. Throw a sheet down on Arthur’s bed and put him there.”

Every word draws him further back into the waking world, and Charles looks around him blearily. Miss Grimshaw is leading him along by his arm, and when she sees his face lift from the ground she seems to heave a sigh of relief. 

“You were starting to worry me there, Mister Smith,” she chides, sitting Charles down with a firm hand when the backs of his knees hit what he assumes to be Arthur’s cot. 

“Not so easy to kill,” he manages with a huff of breath, the closest he can get to a laugh. It eases some of the tension in the line of Susan’s mouth, and Charles counts that as a victory.

“Keep that spirit, Mister Smith,” Susan says somewhat grimly, laying him down carefully on the bed he’s fantasized about finding himself in. None of those fantasies involved him bleeding all over the place, but Charles considers himself lucky nonetheless. “It’s not going to be fun to be you for a while.”

Miss Grimshaw wasn’t kidding. Charles can withstand most pain gracefully, but no amount of whiskey can dull the feeling of bone shards being picked out and repositioned, skin being sewn back together carefully around the mess made of his abdomen. He can hear her mumbling about how lucky he is that only his free-standing ribs were injured.

The bison had taken a good chunk of him, Susan tells him later as she washes blood carefully from his new stitches. Fourteen neat little knots and a misshapen stretch of flesh pulled to cover his wound as best as possible. Charles is moderately drunk and can’t figure out how he wants to respond to that, how he even wants to feel about it. He just frowns, concerned and aching, and Susan chuckles at him. 

“You’ll be just fine, if you rest plenty. I worry less about you running off to play hero than I do most of the riff-raff around here,” she assures him, eyes trained on her task. “Though, hero ain’t the right word for it, I s’pose. We don’t do anything very heroic ‘round here.”

“I don’t have a death wish, if that’s what you mean,” Charles chuckles, the sound morphing into a grunt as the washcloth passes over a sensitive spot. His whole side is made up of those now, but there’s a patch where the muscle had been so shredded that even breathing wrong will send spikes of pain up his entire chest. “I prefer to only get fatally wounded when I didn’t have any other choice.”

“Good man,” she says with a wry smile, and rinses her cloth off in the basin beside her. Susan stands, giving Charles a firm nod. “That’s a good man. You get some rest, and I’ll bring you by some stew whenever you wake.”

Charles thanks her, glad to see Susan go to get some rest herself. It’s late now, probably closer to morning. He feels tense, coiled like a spring now that his immediate pain has faded significantly. The drink helps slightly, making him warm and less afraid for himself. It still doesn’t take long before the lack of distraction begins to prove itself in pain and distortion. 

He could drink more, but he fears throwing up and opening his side back up in the convulsions. Everyone is seemingly asleep, and even if he were in shape enough to go find any stragglers Charles is hardly in a mood for conversation. He shifts in the bed, hoping that getting more comfortable will make him feel less restless. Fixes the blanket, tugs at the pillow. Susan must have left something in the cot, his knuckles bumping against something firm, and Charles grabs to get rid of it. 

It’s a book. Arthur’s journal, the one bound in smooth red leather that he has watched Arthur’s gorgeous fingers run over absently since Charles joined the Van der Linde gang. It’s beautiful and heavy in his hands, physically and otherwise. Sadie’s words roll through his head, and Charles gives them serious thought for the first time since she’d asked him. 

Arthur’s private thoughts were a whole other world to him, somewhere that Charles was forbidden from knowing or seeing. Charles has always been a private person himself, and so Arthur’s own propensity for it was easy to respect. No hesitation or cajoling, Charles had never even gone so far as to ask to see a drawing or read his scrawled words. That respect had earned him half-glimpses as Arthur let him get closer than anyone else, when the journal was open. Charles never really tried, perfectly happy to play their game on Arthur’s terms. 

Now, the whole charade is blown to pieces. Arthur has been gone for nearly a week, no guess as to the nature of his extended absence other than uncharacteristically broken promises. Charles is drunk and wistful, tucked into a bed that is cloying with the scent of the man he wants so wildly. He’s had his own fears, and Sadie only impacted those worries even further into Charles’ mind. 

Arthur doesn’t break promises to his family, not unless he has a good reason. 

Charles is just so goddamn curious. 

\--

_Charles and I rode out early this morning to hunt bison together._

_He told me all about his mother’s people, the way they lived and moved with the bison. Taught me everything there is to know about the creatures, which I do admit to having not known a single thing about them beforehand. It was quite interesting, and made Charles make much more sense to me. I think I would have liked his mother, had I ever the chance to meet her. I cannot imagine she was anything but a good woman to be the mother of someone like Charles._

_I once thought that if I came to understand Charles that he would not wander through my mind so often. I was a fool to think it. The more I learn, the more I think of him. I cannot seem to stop myself, no matter the confusion it creates in me._

_He kept the herd contained and let me take down one of the great beasts. When he rode alongside me, Charles looked over and smiled like he had never been happier. There is not much I would deny doing in order to see him smile like that again._

_He knows how I take my coffee, without being told._

_I am going to make a fool of myself, I just know it._

  
  


_Today was so hot the entire gang was laid out like wet laundry. Everyone who could burn was red as Pearson, and Pearson was red as the devil’s ass. I was hardly much better myself, panting like a dog and wringing my shirt out as if it would help._

_Charles made some strange smelling concoction that was supposed to help with the itching we were all left with after the last few days of endless sun. He caught me while I was by the river, washing the sweat out of my clothes. Smeared the ice cold shit across my back without warning and laughed at me when I howled like a barn cat._

_When I was done bellyaching, he put the poultice over my burns for me, against my empty protests. I will not admit aloud that I objected mostly due to knowing just what his hands on my skin would do to me. What am I doing? How soon will I expose myself as a senseless mess the moment that I am aware of his being near me?_

_If that one touch was enough to turn me damn near into a puddle, what else could he possibly do to me? I don’t let myself think about it too much, though that is still far more thinking than I should be doing at all._

_I helped a ridiculous man take some wildlife photographs today, and I could not help thinking about how much Charles would have loved the whole situation. Would have gotten a kick out of Mason and his antics._

_Every time that I leave camp, I find something to make me wish Charles was with me. I’ve woken up near every night thinking about his hands, his hair, his mind. I think of touching him more than I think of breathing._

_I was in love once, with Mary. And though I didn’t love Eliza I did adore her, wanted the best for her. Even just the idea of Charles coming close enough to touch has me more affected than I have ever been for a woman._

_I catch him watching me sometimes, with those dark eyes. He does not shy away when I see him, just stares for another moment and goes back to whatever he was doing before. Carving beads or fletching arrows. It leaves me dry in the mouth, my head ringing._

_What have I gotten myself into?_

_Mary sent me a letter today. She was not unkind, but that woman knows exactly what to say to wound me without ever having the blame land on herself. She has broken my heart a few too many times, I fear, and while I do yearn to see her it is with the intention of seeing her for what she is at long last._

_A lost love._

_I buried Eliza and Isaac a long time ago, and any feelings alongside them in the hard ground. Mary has been a festering wound, an inescapable shadow. She has hung over me for far too long, and I believe that I clung to her less because I loved her still and more so because I had a notion that if I could work out something with her it would make me a good man. But that ship has long since sailed, gone from my harbor long before Mary was even in my life. I have been soiled since birth, the progeny of a good woman and her drunk, stupid outlaw._

_Would that not have been any child that Mary and I could have borne, in the end? I got my good woman and my son killed through neglect, and Mary would not have been any different. I was raised by my father more than any other, and I did not have a chance of escaping a fate of simply being a better and more efficient Lyle. Take your father’s faults and turn them into a lucrative career._

_Doesn’t make you any less doomed, but it feels like how to felt to watch him hang. Feels like wearing his hat. Feels like pissing on his damned grave, if I could find it._

_Charles is a good man. That is something that I have noticed. He has gentle hands, despite all that strength. The man could probably kill me without trying, something that I will privately admit is thrilling in a way I cannot think of too intimately in good company. He’s good, and kind, and so deliberate it’s almost annoying at times. Everything he does and says is purposeful, meaningful. There are no wasted words, no wasted bullets, no wasted time._

_Loving a man is different from loving women. Loving someone who has killed in cold blood is different, loving someone who can heft you over their shoulder. Charles has deft fingers and quick little movements but he is a mountain of a man, larger than even myself which few can claim. There is no protecting Charles from the world. The world must be protected from us, and us from ourselves. That’s a different feeling, down to the very bone of it._

_I have felt wrong since they took Jack from us. Getting him back didn’t fix it, or burning down the Braithwaite place. I don’t know what will fix it, but I think I need to do that before I can try and find myself at Charles’ mercy. I need to melt whatever part of my humanity has gone cold from being no good for far too long. I don’t know what there is for me to find, but if nothing else, maybe I will just learn that I am past the point of fixing. Past the point of loving. At least then I will know for sure._

_I’m going to go see Mary, and try to see if tying up some loose ends points me in the right direction to feeling like myself again. God or whatever’s out there willing, by the time I get back home to the gang I will be a man who is ready to feel something for another without restraint._

_I want to love him, that Charles. I know it’s happened most of the way already, and I’m afraid of that more than I’m afraid of death or illness or divine retribution. He told me once that his one real fear was letting something good happen and having it taken away, and I wonder if maybe that’s a fear of mine too._

_I would like to let a good thing happen, so I need to figure out what I can do first to keep it from being taken away. I want to hold him, to have him. I want this._

_I’m going to be good. I think I could, if it’s for him._

\--

The sun peeks over the horizon, meek and modest beneath heavy overcast clouds. Charles is weeping, silent but shaking, as his fingers trace over wonderfully detailed drawings of creatures and plants and himself. Over and over again, his own face and form rendered flawlessly with such a tender hand that he can hardly believe it. The perfect plait of his hair and bump of his broken nose, every detail recounted upon these pages in his hands. 

Arthur loves him, in his own way. Charles too has his own way of loving, and that affection surges so strongly through his chest it threatens to burst him at the seams and stitches. 

_I will find you, Arthur Morgan_ , he thinks as his thumb passes over his own name in Arthur’s swooping handwriting. Elegant and unanticipated. _Wherever you are, I will find you._


	5. acquittance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charles had never considered himself much of a caretaker, but he couldn’t seem to help himself when it came to Arthur. Couldn’t stop his mind from conjuring up ways to make Arthur’s life easier, to smooth the path ahead of them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> shit gets rough, and shit gets tender. in that order
> 
> this chapter is a monster, and i tried to split it up six ways to sunday but i just don't like breaking the pace of this one any way other than how i originally wrote it so. heres 7k. two more chapters after this, folks

Inky blackness, the absolute absence of everything. Arthur knows only that he breathes, shallowly inhaling thin air. It smells of hay and sweat and mildew. He is dangling in the void, no floor to feel or ceiling to enclose him in. There is only the feel of metal digging into his ankles, visceral and nigh unbearable when the rest of his senses are stifled. 

He has no idea how long he’s been here, wherever here is. Could have been a few hours or a few days. His body aches to completely that any wounds or pains have merged together into one all-encompassing torment. Hunger and thirst mean little, with how it feels like his blood is slowly relocating it’s stores into his head. Arthur wonders how long it’ll take him to burst like a grape, hanging as he is. 

This might be death. Hell was supposed to be full of fire and cackling beasts, but Arthur thinks that this is just as terrible a fate. Suspended in the silence, nothing to feel but a single point of concentrated pain and a slow yet endless crawl towards death. Maybe it would drive him mad before it killed him, give him the peace of freedom from awareness. Maybe it wouldn’t, and he’d have to feel his body die, feet-first in some grotesque mirror image of how he came into the world. Aware of every numbing limb until his heart cannot handle the pressure.

It could be limbo, too. The act of hanging between good and evil his entire life finally culminating in a pendulous swing to determine his fate. Time might cradle him until he thinks the one saving or damning thought that will end the absence of things and send him hurtling towards something less intangible. 

Arthur is not religious, has never seen the point of gods and their delusions of grandeur. Even so, all bad men fear Hell and it’s equivalents. There is no way to know of an afterlife until you’re there, and if Arthur had to guess he would say this is a decisive way to make someone admit their sins before the blood in their head floods everything they are and have ever been. 

A white line appears in the dark, and suddenly there is a huge swathe of light that blinds Arthur just as efficiently as the blackness. He can vaguely see a shape coming towards him, silhouetted and menacing. 

“So, you ain’t dead yet,” says a voice as the silhouette kneels to look Arthur in the eye. Colm O’Driscoll smiles, resting easily on his heels like he doesn’t have a man hanging in a cellar by his ankles. Like he doesn’t have a pistol in his hands, turning it to wrap his fingers around the cool metal of the barrel. “We’ll see how long that lasts.”

The first angry thud of the pistol grip impacting with his ribs doesn’t hurt as badly as Arthur thought it would. The sixth cracks something, drawing a shout out of him, and Arthur is welcomed back into the blackness like an old friend.

\--

For another few days, nothing happens. Charles keeps himself contained, trying not to let his nervous energy impact his healing. 

“Dutch! Hosea!”

It’s late enough that Karen’s shouting jolts them all to attention, her mare crashing through the trees and into the middle of camp. Karen looks wild, her hair sticking to her face with sweat and falling out of it’s up-do in large pieces. There’s a woman on the saddle behind her, looking around like she’s seeing a ghost. The woman is beautiful, her dark hair and ivory complexion just as distressed by the wind as Karen’s. Her dress is fine, expensive-looking, but she doesn’t seem to give it a second thought as she slides down and splashes into the mud. 

Karen hops down, too, just as Hosea turns the corner and then halts in his tracks. The woman looks just as startled at the sight of him, but breaks into a wide smile quick as a blink. “Hosea,” she breathes, and he practically jogs over to hug her. Charles watches with keen interest, along with nearly everyone else still awake.

“Mary. Didn’t think I’d ever see you again,” he says into her hair, fond as can be. 

So this is Mary. Charles looks her over again, and again, soaking up everything he possibly can now that he knows who he’s looking at. Her soft features and the sweetness of her smile, the way she so delicately covers her discomfort. The kindly way that Hosea pulls away but holds onto her still is charming, speaks well of her character and whatever situation she and Arthur had gotten themselves into. 

“It’s good to see you,” says Mary, her eyes creasing with a wide smile full of relief. Dutch finally stalks out of his tent, muttering under his breath as he makes his way to the center of camp.

“What in the-” 

He halts, as he and Mary make eye contact. Dutch slowly paints on his showboat smile, the one usually used for people he’d rather not waste his time on. It makes Charles bristle instantly, the mere fact of Mary being something Arthur cares about making her someone to be respected. Charles watches as Dutch turns himself smooth as suede, taking Mary’s hand in his own. The expression is plain smarmy to the trained eye, and Charles buries a smirk as he sees Mary’s lips thin just slightly, her eyes narrowing as she watches Dutch carefully.

Smart woman. Charles likes her already.

“Mrs. Linton, it’s quite good to see you. What brings you to our humble abode?” Dutch slants his eyes at Karen, gaze just shy of accusing. Bringing an outsider into camp is certainly risky, but Charles doubts she’d be here without a hell of a good reason. Karen agrees, apparently, because she refuses to shrink under Dutch’s disapproval. Her shoulders set back, a clear show of resistance.

Mary pats Dutch’s hand, bringing his attention back to her diplomatically. “Just Mary now, thank you,” she corrects, without explanation. She speaks quickly and with purpose, eyes flitting around to everyone at the camp. Her eyes skim over Charles and then jerk back to him, and they hold each other’s gaze for a scant moment before Mary forges on. “I’ve been looking for you all for some time now. Arthur came to help me with some things in Saint Denis, and something… Something happened.”

Pulling her hands out of Dutch’s grip, she turns towards the campfire and the rest of the gang, certain now that she has everyone’s attention. “We ran into some men, whom he called O’Driscolls. He got me into hiding, and he was supposed to come back for me, but- Well, he never showed.” Despite the steadiness of her voice, Mary’s hands grasp and pull at each other, her skirts, anything they brush against. She meets Charles’ eyes once more, and he swears they share some kind of understanding in the beat of silence. _Arthur would come back_ , they both think, _if he were alive or able to do so_. Charles can see the worry folded into every inch of her, the tuck of her shoulders and the nervous working of her jaw. “I don’t know anything more than that, but I can show you where we were last. If that means anything.”

Charles stands himself up with a bit of effort, inclining his head to Mary and looking around at the rest of the group. “I don’t think they’d kill him,” he says, sounding far more sure than he feels. “They want to wound us, to scare us - if they’d killed him, they would’ve let us know that somehow. Arthur is far more useful as a hostage than a corpse.” Mary makes a choked little noise, and Charles remembers that this is not her life, not her world. They have all accepted these realities to be a part of their lives, a necessary risk. To Mary, it’s an appalling injustice. 

He turns to Mary, unrelenting in his stoicism but not unkind. “Arthur is in danger, but you did well by coming to us. We would’ve had no chance of finding him, if not for you.” Charles inclines his head to her, hoping that she sees it as the show of respect that he means it to be. “Thank you.”

Mary nods, face creased with an earnest sort of emotion that Charles cannot hope to interpret. He thinks she understands him though, what he’s said and what he hasn’t, and that’s enough. 

Dutch and Hosea are speaking to each other in low voices, both of them clearly rigid with tension. The rest of the gang is similarly broken off before long, hushed conversations like a storm front rolling over the camp. They will act in the morning, when Mary can give them the best trail and when they have at least the workings of a plan in motion. It’s hardly a comfort to Charles, but it’s something. It stills the quell in his chest for the moment. 

He’s staring blankly at the heating kettle, thoughts tumultuous and without shape, when Mary finds her way to the seat beside him. 

“We never got introduced,” she says, voice soft against the silence. Charles looks at her, features illuminated by the flickering fire and still warped with worry that no consolations will ease. Mary turns to meet his eyes, her lips curling in a halting smile. “I’m Mary.”

“Charles.” He shakes her hand, finding her slender fingers and firm grip endearing. A woman of contradictions. He’s hardly surprised. 

“I thought you might be,” she says cryptically, her meek smile turning sly in the dim light. “Arthur never told me what you looked like, but he spoke of you enough that I knew you when I first saw you.”

“He spoke of me?” Charles tries not to sound surprised. He completely fails, if Mary’s laugh is anything to go by. 

“As much as Arthur speaks about anyone. Arthur is hardly verbose, but you can hear a whole lot in what he bothers to say about someone. Besides, he's about as subtle as a bear when it comes to avoiding a topic.” Mary’s mouth twists, and she looks over Charles thoughtfully. Watches him as he takes the kettle off the open flame, pours a cup of tea and offers it to her. She takes it gratefully, a contented hum escaping her at the warm smell. 

“Cherry bark,” Charles tells her, pouring himself a cup carefully. “There’s a few groves of black cherry trees just up north of the bayou. You can use the inner bark for coughing and pain, but I like the taste.” Mary hums as she listens, and Charles finds it strangely cathartic. He hasn’t spoken much in Arthur’s absence. Charles had never spoken much before meeting Arthur, but somehow in the time between then and now he finds the words building up in him with no one worth speaking to. “My mother was Nehiyawok, and since her Cree lived on the plains she always thought tree bark in tea was a delicacy. Something special.”

Mary’s eyes have folded pleasantly at the corners, the rest of her face hidden behind the cup like she has a secret in the crook of her mouth. She reminds Charles of Arthur, tipping his hat to and fro with every sway of his thoughts. “What else is in it?”

“Rosehip,” he says, “and orange peel, if there’s any to be had. It’s difficult to find around here. There’s lemongrass too, which I like to soak in honey before I dry it out. Makes it easier to bundle up.” 

“It’s quite good.” Charles smiles at her and Mary nearly beams in response, looking like she’d won something. They don’t break their eye contact, something pulling taut in their acknowledgement of each other. Charles wants to turn away, nearly does, but he can’t seem to bring himself to endanger whatever moment of understanding the two of them are having. 

Sitting on a log by a campfire, in the dead of night and shaken with fear, Mary asks him what Charles has been toeing around for far too long. 

“Do you love him?” she asks, as if either of them don’t know already. As if anyone had any choice in the matter when it comes to loving Arthur Morgan, as if that too hadn't happened on a log by a campfire in the dead of night, refusing to break a loaded gaze. Sudden and inexplicable. As if Charles could say it out into the crisp air when neither he nor Mary know if Arthur still breathes, far away and out of their reach. 

“I do,” he says anyway, because it doesn’t matter if Arthur is dead or alive. Charles still loves him, will always do so in the pit of his stomach and the palms of his hands. Will always feel Arthur in his being whenever he braids his hair, carves a little stag into a wooden bead, sees a Missouri Fox Trotter or a bison or a little yarrow plant bending with the breeze. 

“Good,” she says with a firm nod, reaching out to take his hand. Charles acquiesces, gives her slender fingers a fond little squeeze. It’s more for him than it is for her, but maybe both of them know that already, too. “You’re just the man for the job.”

\--

The world goes in and out, real and false, light and dark. Arthur knows little about what happens around him, intimate only with the knowledge of hunger and thirst, and a savage little creature inside of him ruled by fear. 

Reason leaves him as he becomes a sightless mole, overstimulated and confused in that cellar. They take him down from the meat hook, no longer dangling and bursting from his own blood. The chains stay tight around his ankles, too close to shoot off even if he did manage to escape somehow and find himself a weapon. His hands are shackled, chained, loosely attached to the wall with just enough space given for him to feed himself. Relieving himself is awkward and humiliating, and Arthur avoids it if he can. He’s dehydrated anyway, doesn’t have much to dispose of. 

They feed him inconsistently, usually preferring to taunt him with hot cooked meals that leave him salivating like a dog. His wounds ache, and they dump sharp-smelling whiskey over his open skin so they don’t have to deal with him getting infections. It leaves him burning and his skin sticky and irritated, just another source of overstimulation. He doesn’t get beaten much, though he certainly isn’t spared from it either. Starving and desperate, Arthur lashes out animalistically if they get too close to him. Gnashing teeth and flailing his bound legs as if they could do any real damage. They begin to leave him be once they realize that he’s no fun, all bite and no bark. 

The men who enter through the cellar door have no identities in the dark, any discernible details of their faces slipping out of Arthur’s mind before they’ve even shut the heavy wooden door behind them. Vengeance and fury mean nothing - survival is all that Arthur can possibly be aware of. Some part of his mind has shut off anything not related to the barest functions of staying alive in order to keep him sane.

Arthur has no idea how much time has passed, only knows it hasn’t been too long on account of him not yet seeking anything even dubiously edible to eat. He has a familiar face and voice that surfaces from time to calm, calming the creature and bringing Arthur’s rationality closer to the surface. Like looking at fish through rippling water, his thoughts are difficult to grasp, but the soothing presence brings him peace.

In, out. Real, false. Light, dark. 

The world is painful and intangible, sifting through his fingers and impossible to hold long enough to perceive. Arthur thinks of broad shoulders and dark hair, the kindest eyes and the strongest hands, and calms his heart long enough to sleep.

\--

Charles heads out the following morning, Mary on the back of his horse and Sadie riding along with them to take Mary back once the trail is found. John had offered, but Abigail met Charles’ eyes and he could see the fear rolling through her. Fear for the situation, sure, but more so fear of the knowledge that if Arthur is gone then everyone’s world will fall apart far sooner than they’d been anticipating. He waves away John, ignores the man’s furious protests and instead finds Abigail’s eyes again. She isn’t smiling, but they share a nod. 

_Whatever happens, stay safe and don’t look back_. He can feel the words in her gaze, the thin line of her pursed lips. The way she grips at Jack’s shirt like it’s the only thing keeping her from floating up and up, away from the chaos but always forced to watch it rage on below her. Things have seemed moments away from going awry for weeks now, and every step taken feels like another nail in their proverbial coffin. Families should stay together, in case the worst comes while they’re off looking for the only true backbone of the group besides Hosea. John’s protests mean nothing, in the wake of Charles’ and Abigail’s shared understanding. 

The women always tend to see more, notice the rising tides before they swallow up the shore. It’s the greatest boon of being considered invisible, seen as blind deaf and dumb by virtue of existence. Charles feels it, too. There is no way to explain that, not to John. 

Sadie claps her hand onto John’s shoulder, shutting him up for a moment, and she grins at Charles. 

It’s decided.

They don’t speak much, none of the three of them very interested in voicing their maudlin thoughts. Charles' side aches terribly, but has healed well enough that it can be ignored for the time being. Mary only breaks the silence to direct him along their path, heading around the lower outskirts of Saint Denis to a small wooded area. They get down from their horses and wander there for a short while, Mary sounding frustrated as she searches for landmarks.

Her mouth moves, Charles knows that. Sadie responds and he can hear the sound of it, but the words don’t process as anything but noise. His blood is pounding in his ears like a drumbeat, drowning out everything else he knows as Charles spots a trail, just a little ways away. The dirt path is dug out in deep rivets from a rearing horse, surely from Adelaide. He hears Mary shout from somewhere behind him, and the distance of her voice would be just the right range to match up the story she’d told them about what happened, what she’d heard when Arthur got captured. 

There’s blood in the dirt, and soaked into the whirling bark of the nearest trees. It’s the definite trail he wanted but it settles in his chest like lead, heavy and daunting. 

Charles walks back towards Mary and Sadie, flagging them down once he has their attention. “Found a trail,” he says, and though he doesn’t elaborate, the grim expressions that the two women don says that they know exactly what that translates to. “You two head back. I’ll move on from here.”

Sadie nods, turning herself and Mary back towards the horses. It’ll be a long ride, and Charles knows he’ll struggle in some areas to follow the path left behind. He whistles for Taima, heading back towards the start of the trail.

“Good luck, Charles. Don’t get dead,” Sadie calls out to him. Charles waves at her over his shoulder, not even looking back. 

Sadie won’t mind, he knows that. They all have the same priority now - Arthur must be found.

\--

They come down to the cellar and heft him off the ground, the chains clattering against the floor. His ankles are still shackled, and Arthur realizes why when his feet rise above his head and he’s hung once again from the meat hook. The floor sways below him, grimy and dizzying.

The men don’t say much, lacking in the usual laughter and bickering that accompanies their intrusion upon Arthur’s solitude. The change in routine terrifies him, leaves him panting and sweating and frightful as he dangles once more in the damned cellar.

Something has to break. A change means that whatever Colm is planning is reaching it’s final stages. 

Arthur hopes he dies before the trumpets call. This is not his rapture.

\--

It takes him two full days of tracking, but Charles finds them. 

The blood peters out quickly, which at least assuages any fears of Arthur being a transported corpse instead of a hostage. He loses the trail countless times, and has to scour the area for hours before he finds anything else that might be from the O’Driscolls. It’s frustrating and distressing, leaves Charles adrenaline-fueled and furious.

He comes upon their camp in the night. 

There are two small tents and two decently large cabins, one with a light lit inside and one dark. There are horses hitched near where he approaches, a hungry and distressed-looking Adelaide among them. It pangs in his chest, knowing he can’t do a thing for her now. _Soon_ , he promises silently. It’s all he can do, for the moment. Charles heads downwind from the horses so as not to startle them, and it conveniently places him in view of a cellar door. It’s not locked by any means, which means that an injured and bound man could be held down there without worry. It’s a solid clue, as good a guess as any. 

Charles waits and watches their rounds, makes sure that he has enough time to silently open and close the heavy cellar door without alerting anyone. It’s tentative, and he’ll only have enough time if he’s quick, but it will have to do. He doesn’t have much choice, now. Not when he’s so close.

The sole guard wanders past, oblivious. Charles makes his move.

His feet are silent as he darts across the camp from his hiding place in the brush, and the cellar door lifts and shuts quiet as a whisper while his wounded side screams. It’s pitch black in the cellar, and the only sound being a quiet panting breath somewhere in the dark. It smells terrible, musty and dense like sweat and piss. Charles heart twists, hoping desperately that he has found Arthur and not stumbled into the belly of the beast. He finds a match in his pockets and strikes it, the light just enough to see the vague details of the room.

A small desk, with a candle atop it. Chains on the walls and the floor, tossed haphazardly to the side. Arthur Morgan, barely conscious and beat to shit, hanging from the ceiling by his feet.

Charles will kill every last one of these O’Driscolls, and he’s going to like it. There’s no guilt here, no shame to douse his fury. He will take his time killing them and it’s going to feel good.

He moves to the candle first, the match waning quickly. It stays on the table once lit, illuminating the dark corners of the cellar as Charles turns back to find Arthur staring at him, wide-eyed.

“Charles,” he breathes, like it can’t be real. His face is mottled with bruises and cuts, nearly purple from hanging for who knows how long. Charles steps back towards him, reaching out carefully to touch the man he was nearly sure was dead. “You came for me.”

“Arthur,” Charles sighs out, keeping himself together with a fraying thread. “As if I could do anything else.” Charles steels his nerves, gathers himself together and does not allow himself to think for the moment. “This is going to hurt, be ready.”

Lifting him off the chain is physically easy, more so than he thought it would be. It’s a mental hurdle he trips over, smacks into and bruises himself on. 

The keys for the chains are left on the desk by the candle, since there was no chance of Arthur getting himself off the chain without being heard. The irony is satisfying and only sharpens Charles’ anger. The chains fall away from Arthur’s ankles and take patches of his skin along with them, the wounds there curling Charles’ gut. But there is no time to think on these things, and Charles sits Arthur in the desk chair as gently as possible. 

“I’m going to clear out the camp,” Charles tells him, hesitant to touch Arthur but aching to do so. “Wait here, and I’ll be back for you.”

\--

Arthur follows Charles up the cellar stairs, pain meaning nothing to the wild and caged animal in his chest. It’s a massacre, two men exacting their wrath against twelve unsuspecting pawns who thought they'd already won. They fall like dead trees, heavy and loud and unmoving before they even manage to hit the ground.

Charles is covered in blood, the arterial spray of the man he’d knifed staining most of his shirt and clumping his hair. The feathers tied there are just as ruined, dripping in a way that should be far more gruesome than Arthur finds it.

Arthur doesn’t actually know what he thinks about the sight.

His heart is still thumping wildly, the sound reverberating in his ears. He’s nearly as covered as Charles, can feel blood running over his lips and isn’t sure if it’s his own or not. The punch he’d caught certainly had enough force to break his nose even further. Arthur was surprised he could still breathe out of the mess of poorly healed - and now, shattered again - cartilage. Something about violence, not senseless but certainly heedless, surfaced a feral part of him. He maims, and so it is not so distant an urge to want to claim as well. Charles, panting and bleeding and victorious over bodies that far outnumbered him; Arthur, savage and aching and meeting his eyes with the inexplicable tension that comes with witnessing each other’s violence.

Arthur’s fist clenches in the front of Charles’ soaked shirt, the wet sound of it pulling from his chest making Arthur’s stomach clench even tighter. It’s his favorite one, the blue spotted fabric softened by time and wear and surely ruined now. Charles bares his teeth just so, unafraid but riding the same surge of energy that Arthur is, ready to fight. He feels Charles’ hand grasp onto his wrist, expectant.

He doesn’t know what he thinks, but he knows what he wants. Wildly and vividly. 

Arthur drags him in and kisses him, bruising and tasting of iron. Charles grunts, his hand dropping from Arthur’s wrist only to wrap into Arthur’s hair and yank him away _hard_. 

The stifled, keening noise that leaves him at the shock of the pain is something Arthur would never admit to. It takes barely a moment for the shame to knock into him, coil around his throat with a sudden realization of _Oh, I have fucked up badly_. Charles has a look of cold fury in his eyes that makes Arthur want to curl up, go back in time and pretend he hasn’t exposed the only stinging nerve he has. 

Charles doesn’t shove him away like he expects. The hand in his hair keeps him close, their eyes locked and gasping each other’s air. His other hand digs so hard into Arthur’s hip he winces, the bullet graze not too far from where Charles’ fingers are surely leaving bruises. 

“You will not,” Charles breathes, “Touch me in anger.”

He sounds wrecked. Like the words are pulled out of him, ragged and angry. Not for the first time, Arthur wishes desperately that he knew what Charles was thinking, how he felt. If he was disgusted, or even just disappointed. Like Arthur's had so much promise, and the real thing pales in comparison. So consumed by his own self-reproach, Arthur just smiles. A tired little grin that shows all the blood in his teeth and the tender spots torn open. 

“Think that might be all I’ve got, Smith.”

It’s like the dam breaks. Charles’ face has rarely shown anything clearly, yet in that moment Arthur can feel the weight of every emotion that paints his expression openly. Charles is grief-stricken, heartbroken, the hands that trap Arthur loosening to cradle him. Fingers card through his tangled hair gently, thumb rasping softly over the bruises surely forming at the dent of his hips. “It’s not,” he murmurs, and Arthur thinks he’s going to go on but Charles just pulls him forward and kisses him again. 

It takes the air out of him. Charles’ kiss is so gentle, so soft, and yet it feels more capable of breaking Arthur than when he was actually being hurt. Arthur makes a wounded noise nonetheless, melting into his touch like a cornered animal realizing it’s being helped. 

Charles’ hands slide to cup his jaw, never once breaking contact with Arthur. When he pulls away it’s by a hair's breadth, and their eyes meet once more with them both calmed into tenderness. 

“You are more than a brute, Arthur Morgan.” It’s a whisper, his lips sliding over Arthur’s stubbled jaw and pressing feather-light kisses down his neck and brushing him with every murmured word. Arthur swallows, overwhelmed and speechless, and Charles makes a quiet noise when Arthur’s throat bobs beneath his lips. “You are more than angry, more than a killer. You think I’d be here if I didn’t know that?”

Arthur shudders out a breath. His fist, still white-knuckled in Charles' shirt, loosens to press a palm against Charles’ chest. The heart beating there is soothing. “I’m a bad man, Charles.” He looks up at the sound of his name, Arthur sorely missing the lips on his throat but forging along. “Ain’t never been a good one. Didn’t even care much for trying, until you came along.”

“You know that’s not-”

Arthur shushes him, and Charles presses his lips together in an indignant line. He stays silent though, and Arthur is grateful for it. 

“You seen good in me, and I thank you for that. You pulled it outta me on days I forgot it was an option. But that good man you see ain’t the core of me. Weren’t born to it but I was sure as hell raised to killin’ and beatin’, and that part’a me won’t go away.” Arthur wraps his hands around Charles’ sides, feeling his ribs expand and contract like it would ground him somehow. Bring him back to reality. 

Charles looks around at the bodies that surround them, bloodied to a pulp or fatally shot in a show of killing finesse that few other than the Van der Linde gang can manage. “I’m not saying you don’t have the capacity for terrible things. I do, too - we butchered these men. And I know we’ll do it again, and there will be no nightmares or remorse. 

“But that’s not the only thing you are. You have so much good in you, Arthur, good that I see going to waste while you bury yourself deeper and deeper just to help Dutch with his foolish power schemes. You aren’t stupid. You never have been.”

Charles hands run down Arthur’s chest, shaking his head as he thinks for a moment. His fingers brush over Arthur’s wound just enough to draw a wince out of him, and it yanks them back into reality - huddled together in a sea of carnage, there for the vultures or the Pinkertons or both. 

“Shit, alright. Let’s head down to the creek, set up camp. Can you ride?” Charles looks him over, assessing. Arthur has to bite back a defensive retort, unwilling to be rude when he can see the worry in Charles’ eyes. 

“Yeah, I’m fine. You ride ahead and find a spot. I’ll go calm down Adelaide, get what’s worth gettin’ and follow you down.”

\--

By the time Arthur loots the men they’d killed and tracked his way down the creek, Charles has a tent set up and is boiling water over the fire. Arthur can’t help breathing out a sigh of relief, sliding off Adelaide to hitch her up near Taima. He fishes around in the saddlebags and comes up with a few bruised apples, splitting them between the two ladies and getting contented burrs in return. He gives Adelaide a parting scratch behind her ear before heading over to Charles and the growing fire.

“Don’t sit down just yet,” Charles says without looking up, and Arthur obeys without thought or complaint. Just admires the slope of Charles’ back as he tends the flames, his shirt replaced with a patchwork pullover and still-wet hair now rinsed of blood. It’s only a few moments before the fire is roaring and he turns back to Arthur with the barest smirk, head cocked. 

“Not a word of complaint, huh? You really are going soft on me.” 

Arthur scoffs, shaking his head. “Long day,” he grumbles, stifling a noise as Charles grabs at his hips to pull him closer and inspect the clotted graze on his side. Charles just hums, unconvinced and amused as he pulls somewhat uselessly at the gap in Arthur’s shirt. 

“Take this off, I can’t see anything. I need to make sure there’s nothing left in the wound before we get you patched up.” It’s such a casual request, and any other day Arthur wouldn’t have thought twice about it. All they’d shared was a few kisses, and suddenly he’s a blushing virgin - as if Charles hadn’t seen him far more naked on many occasions. 

Charles must notice his hesitation, but doesn’t say a word or rush him. Just waits patiently, hands resting comfortingly on his side and drawing small circles with his thumb. Arthur finally - slowly, so as not to yank his wounds open - unbuttons his stained union suit and peels it away and off of his skin, hanging loosely over his equally soiled jeans. Charles is watching intently, so much so that Arthur knows he’s turning red down to his collar and can’t do a damn thing about it. “Coulda just pulled it aside,” he mutters, trying desperately not to think of how embarrassed he is over nothing. 

It earns a chuckle out of Charles, who is apparently no longer content to watch and pulls Arthur closer again, by his belt loops this time. He takes a cloth from a pile of supplies set by the fire, dipping it into the water and turning back to run the cloth over Arthur’s skin. The warmth is fantastic, seeping into his aching muscles and soothing the tension in him. Charles’ hands are careful, his fingers running over any undamaged skin he can find like he is just reminding himself that Arthur is alive. Checks on his wounds and breathes a sigh of relief when there is no buckshot or bullets to try and dig out safely. Arthur realizes that he was gone without explanation for who knows how many days, hardly a trail to follow. How long had Colm kept him a prisoner, and how had Charles even found him? Charles seems lost in his mind, rinsing the cloth and taking it back to Arthur’s skin again with a single-minded devotion to his task. Arthur reaches forward with his good arm and slides his hand into Charles’ hair, prompting him to look up at Arthur through his lashes. 

“Charles, how long was I gone?” Arthur almost doesn’t want to know the answer, the way Charles’ eyes shutter and close like he cannot bear to think of the time. There is a deep crease in his brow, and Arthur compulsively runs a thumb over the folds and the soft hair there, wanting to soften whatever pain is hiding in his mind. 

Charles turns his head into Arthur’s hand just slightly, cheek pressing into his palm where the rising pace of his heart is surely obvious. It’s so sweet, so intimate an act. Arthur has to swallow a sigh, wanting only to cradle this man in his arms. Charles murmurs something into Arthur’s hand, too soft to be heard. 

“Once more,” Arthur says, made apprehensive by the barely heard tone of his voice.

“Two weeks,” Charles repeats. His eyes close, open, not a blink but a deliberate act like he is forcing every minute function of his body under his control. Arthur wonders how long he’s been doing that, how long the lack of control over the world has been forcing him into turning his own body into a marionette. “Two weeks since you left, so Colm had you for a week and a half. Mary tracked us down, found Karen at the saloon in Valentine. If she hadn’t come, Arthur...” Charles sucks in a breath, looks up at him and does not continue speaking. Leaves it there, as they both know what it would’ve meant. 

Arthur wouldn’t have been useful much longer. He’d known that when they’d hung him back up like the piece of meat they’d took him for. Useless things get disposed of.

“I’m sorry,” Arthur whispers, running Charles’ hair through his fingers. The feather is gone, ruined, but the beads still tap together as Arthur brushes through the dark and damp strands. 

“Don’t be,” Charles whispers back. He leans forward, nose and cheek pressing into Arthur’s soft stomach. An open-mouth kiss draws a near-silent whine out of Arthur, his hand tightening into Charles’ hair as that mouth skims along his exposed skin. “Don’t want your apologies, just want you alive.” His lips move against Arthur as he speaks, familiar and distracting. Charles presses another kiss to his stomach before pulling back from Arthur, restraining himself and leaving Arthur reeling in his wake.

“Alright,” Arthur says, choked up and half hard and still bleeding somewhat. “Alright.”

Charles chews on the inside of his mouth, clearly hiding a smile in the impassive set of his features. He hands Arthur a new, clean rag and a partial bar of soap from the same pile as before. “Take this and go down to the river, wash up. I’ll have some bandages ready when you’re done.”

\--

Arthur is alive. He’s alive and mostly in one piece, and Charles is so full to bursting with emotion that he hardly knows what to do with himself. He wants everything from Arthur, anything and all that can be given, wants it so much he can hardly think straight. 

Charles focuses on setting out bandages and some herbs and honey to pack the shoulder wound, thankful beyond belief that no infection has set in. He goes through Arthur’s saddlebags and finds a change of clothes, nothing especially protective but better than the ruined clothes he’d been wearing. Every real thing that he can do makes him feel more like the chaos in his mind is returning to normalcy, like the threads of his thoughts are no longer fraying but collecting again into one single bit of string. 

He gives Arthur some time to be alone, to come back to himself. Charles kneels by the fire, letting himself shake apart at the seams for just a moment while no one can see. Arthur was tortured, denied food and drink for days upon days. The only reason he isn’t septic is because they’d dumped whiskey over the worse wounds, but even then it wasn’t in good shape. The alcohol had only been so that Arthur wouldn’t be a hassle to deal with, that’s for sure. It’s easier to hold someone hostage if they can feed themselves, piss in a corner and not all over themselves. They didn’t need information from Arthur, so they didn’t need to break him. Just needed to keep him incapacited long enough to figure out what they wanted to do with him, how they wanted to fuck around with Dutch most efficiently. Starving Arthur, keeping him tied up and confused, that was definitely effective. Charles digs his nails into his palms, so angry he can feel it in him rising and falling like a tide. They killed every O’Driscoll to be found, but it wasn’t enough. It couldn’t ever be enough. No amount of retribution would quell the fear in him, Charles knew that. He knew that he had to get back in control of that fear, or it would take over him like Arthur’s seemed to take him sometimes. 

Charles stands again, restless, and brings the clothing he’d found down to the river where he could hear Arthur in the water. “Arthur?” he calls out, not wanting to catch him unawares. Arthur grunts, coming closer. He’s in the water, nearly up to his shoulders and surrounded by slowly dispersing soap suds. “I found a change of clothes for you.”

Arthur nods, stepping closer to the shore. His shoulder wound is already above the waterline, and Charles very specifically keeps his lips pressed together as the rest of his bruise-addled chest rises up from the clear river. Charles’ mind clashes, one half of him so addled with desire that it leaves him dizzy and warm; the other half wanting only to bandage up, to care for this beautiful creature with the long straw-blonde hair and the battered body. Charles had never considered himself much of a caretaker, but he couldn’t seem to help himself when it came to Arthur. Couldn’t stop his mind from conjuring up ways to make Arthur’s life easier, to smooth the path ahead of them. 

_I love you_ , he thinks desperately, fingers itching to just touch him again. It makes some quiet inner part of him ache, makes Charles not want to allow Arthur to leave his sight in fear that he’ll disappear again. Riding ahead of Arthur to set up camp was difficult enough, only possible because of the adrenaline still coursing through him. Now, Charles was exhausted and wanted only to burn Arthur’s visage into his eyes so the idea of losing him never crossed Charles’ mind again.

“Thank you,” Arthur says, reaching for his hat and floundering when there’s nothing there to tilt down in front of his face. Charles chuckles, watching a pretty red blush creep down Arthur’s face and throat. “Just, uh, set it by the tree. I’ll only be a few more minutes.”

“Take your time,” Charles says. Does as he’s told and wanders back to the fire. Arthur returns not too long after, his pants hanging low on his hips and shirt in hand. His hair drips large rivulets of water down his chest, running a pale pink when they pass over the still open wounds. Charles watches him walk, taking in how his shoulders stay set back despite the pain, his steady gait and surety of being. 

What is it like being Arthur? Charles thinks of it often. The confidence gained through perseverance contrasting starkly against his crippling sense of self-doubt and resentment. Knowledge of your own power does not always mean acknowledgement of it, and Charles can see that Arthur is aware of his impact on the world but cannot seem to alter his perception of himself to match that external persona. It’s strange to watch, the dichotomy of pain and potential forming a void where understanding should be. Arthur deserves that understanding, deserves to feel sure of himself and his ability to be a good man. Charles observes each fractured attempt at reconciling the past with future ideals in Arthur’s mind, who he’s been and who he wants to be, and it hurts him to know that all Arthur can do to really free himself from that crisis is to get as far away from Dutch Van der Linde as possible.

 _What a magnificent creature_ , Charles thinks as Arthur sits down beside him on the blanket by the fire. _If only you could see yourself from here_.

He would make Arthur understand, somehow. There’s always a way.


	6. confluence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charles falls asleep toying with the hand-woven bracelet on his wrist, thinking of how else his world is going to change in the days to come. Sleep comes easier when he is reminded of the one thing he knows for sure - Charles knows whose side he will be on, and that makes all changes far simpler.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> im back, babes. this took a while for two primary reasons: 1) work is hogwild right now and 2) im so embarrassed that i even managed to write this that editing it has been nigh impossible 
> 
> this chapter is less plot (LMAO) and is more just a moment of reprieve before the final chapter. please god i hope yall enjoy this. did i mention im embarrassed? im so very embarrassed

Healing is easy, in this secret little corner of the world they’ve created.

Charles stitches shut each wounded part of him with assiduous focus, his careful hands dwarfing the little needle that slides through Arthur’s mangled skin. The crater in his shoulder has been packed with poultice-soaked gauze and wrapped tightly, neatly. His ankles, where the chains had viciously gripped and suspended Arthur’s prone form, look like they’d been mauled. The skin is torn and warped, clean now and stitched together in only a few spots but mottled with dark bruising. His bullet graze and the broken ribs need the most stitching together, as that is where the skin was split so wide it struggled to cover the gaps in him. The wounds could just be covered for the time being, but the less risk of infection the better. Arthur can tell that Charles has fears of sepsis and debris, double checking each wound just to be sure there’s nothing else to be fixed or cared for. It makes Arthur feel both deeply appreciative and snappish, uncomfortable. He’s not used to the concern, feels unsteady and exposed with this much direct attention. 

The needle piercing through his skin is almost relieving, something to channel his frustration into as opposed to taking it out on the man who saved his life. Arthur watches as Charles breaks the line and ties off a final knot, finally finished piecing together all of Arthur’s fragmented parts. He tucks his hair behind his ears, passing tired eyes over each carefully patched portion of Arthur’s body.

“You’re all done,” he says, the first words in what feels like a long while. Maybe that’s why he sounds so hoarse, so affected. Arthur is stood in front of Charles like he had been before, as they’d found that Charles leaning over him on the ground did no good for either man’s ability to focus. “So, come here.”

Charles wraps his hands around the backs of Arthur’s thighs, pulling him so close that Charles’ nose presses into his stomach the same way it had when they first came together at their camp. The mimicry of the first action taken in the wake of Arthur’s escape, at first still thrumming with adrenaline and now lax and exhausted in the aftermath, is a bit like poetic justice. Arthur lets Charles pull him forward without restraint, just watching as that expression opens slowly as a flower on the morn. He can’t identify it, somewhere between angry and desperate, but Charles deserves to feel whatever he damn well pleases after these last two weeks.

“We should probably talk first,” Charles says into his skin, the low timbre of his voice rumbling up into Arthur’s gut. Arthur grunts, agreeing but distracted. He watches Charles nose along the line of coarse hairs that run down his navel, the creases in his warm and scarred skin softening further with each continued moment of contact. Arthur thinks idly that Charles must have thought of doing this before, the way he seems to gravitate towards the same stretch of abdominal fat and corded muscle. When did he start thinking of it? How long has he pondered grazing those teeth over Arthur’s dappled skin, drawing out the involuntary twitches that Arthur can’t seem to control?

(There is a hazy memory that surfaces, one from weeks ago. Arthur had been about to go to the party at the mayor’s home in Saint Denis, when they were trying to get Jack back. Tilly was helping him with the formal wear, seeing as Arthur had managed to turn himself around ass-backwards and didn’t even know how he’d done it. Tilly had left for a moment to find a hair brush from one of the ladies, leaving him with his shirt open under the fitted jacket and tie hanging over his neck in waiting. Charles had passed by then, and Arthur had watched as Charles’ lips parted for words but never got to speaking. He watched as Charles’ eyes flickered down to his exposed stomach, as Charles’ tongue got all caught up between his teeth. “Good luck, Arthur,” was all he got out before leaving. At a pace just a touch faster than a lumber, it was practically fleeing for Charles. Arthur thinks now, with Charles’ apparent fixation, that the strange moment might’ve been something Charles thought about more than a few times.)

“But,” Charles continues on as his hands glide up over Arthur’s thighs, his ass to his hips, callused fingertips ghosting just over the clasp on his jeans. Disoriented and derailed, Arthur nearly forgot that Charles had been speaking at all. Hanging on every word but hardly aware of their meanings, just the wet rasp of language against Arthur’s sensitive navel. “I’m not sure I have the patience for it just now.”

The air is cool and crisp, and Arthur is sweating. Flushed red down to his chest. Breaths heavy and rattling through his ribs as if the tension in him is tangible enough to knock into every rung. Arthur’s hand slides into Charles’ hair, dry now and ruffled from the breeze and his grasp. He tilts Charles’ head back gently, reluctant to lose the warmth of him but needing something more than just contact. 

“Tell me what you’re thinkin’,” he says as Charles’ eyes drift up to him, hooded and dark from pupils blown wide. “Wanna know what’s goin’ on in that head of yours.”

Charles chuckles, thumbs deftly popping the buttons of Arthur’s pants with deliberation, punctuating his words. “I’m thinking of all the things,” _pop_ , “I’ve thought about you before right now.” _Pop_. “That you’re the only thing I’ve wanted for a very long time.” _Pop_ , goes the last button, with no fanfare but a spike in Arthur’s heartbeat. Charles pulls Arthur’s jeans down just far enough that he’s half exposed, hardening with every creeping inch of Charles’ mouth. “I think this might be too much, but I almost lost you. Can’t help but think that waiting is for fools who don’t have anything better to do with their time.” Charles slides his hand past the barrier of denim to palm at Arthur’s cock where it’s beginning to press against the loosened fabric. It draws a gasp out of Arthur, choked and quiet. The stretch of dark fabric around Charles’ knuckles is just as thrilling as the hand that strokes him, sending his gut roiling with even the mere thought that Charles is touching him, let alone the actual sensation.

The hand in Charles’ hair tightens just slightly, tilting his head back enough that he knows to meet Arthur’s eyes. Lips wet and parted, face stained hickory as he works his hand over Arthur, Charles watches with placid interest as Arthur trips over his own thoughts. The man kneeling before him is so beautiful it aches in him, takes a hold of his beating heart and grasps it tightly. It’s an odd feeling, knowing that someone has a grip on the parts of you that go bump in the night, that they could tug you down from that soapbox at any time. Sweet, in a way - exciting, in another. Not frightening in the least, Arthur realizes as he and Charles watch each other silently. 

This kinship is easy. This lust is simple. This feeling is obvious, blatant as the day once he stops trying to pretend that it’s night. He is allowed to feel good, to want something for himself. He does not have to spend every waking moment repenting for undefined sins, the incessant feeling of wrongness. Arthur can be happy, and Charles wants him to be. 

_How kind_ , he thinks. _How good you are_. 

“You know that I love you,” Arthur says, “right?” Quiet and effortless like it hadn’t broken him down to pieces in order to discover. Charles smiles, more with his eyes than his mouth. It’s charming as ever, that hand on his heart giving Arthur a good squeeze.

“Say it again,” Charles says instead of answering, though Arthur can read between those lines. _I know it in a sense_ , it means, _but I want to know it in all ways ._

“I love you,” Arthur says dutifully. Charles isn’t looking at him, but he hears a contented little hum as Charles tugs Arthur’s pants further down. 

“I love you,” Arthur says once more, suddenly speaking through his teeth as Charles, without warning, takes Arthur’s cock into his mouth.

In an attempt to not pull to roughly at Charles’ hair, Arthur’s hand grasps at the nape of Charles’ neck, trying to ground himself. Charles apparently takes this as a cue and effortlessly swallows Arthur down to the base, tongue pressing up against the underside of him. His cock twitches as Arthur feels it press against the back of Charles’ throat, and Charles moans so quietly that Arthur wouldn’t have known if he hadn’t felt it thrum against him. Charles slides back slowly, hollowing his cheeks further with each inch, and Arthur is doing everything in his power not to cry out at the feeling. Charles fingers dig into his skin, one pressing blunted fingernails into the bare skin of his ass and the other still curved over the back of his clothed thigh.

He watches Charles lave attention over him with rapt interest, unable to draw away his eyes for even a moment. It’s captivating, the way that Charles moves so gracefully while doing something so obscene. The way that Arthur can feel the rumble of his near-silent moans where his fingers meet Charles’ throat, and the enticing stretch of skin exposed as Arthur pushes his hair back over his shoulder. 

For all the times he’s thought about Charles, Arthur has never really allowed himself to fantasize. It felt wrong, an invasion upon the kindness that Charles has gifted him. He doesn’t regret it now - no imagined touch could ever hold a handle to the wet heat of his mouth, the bruising hold of his strong hands. It leaves Arthur with shaking knees, weak already from a fortnight of hell and turned to malleable clay in the hold of his liberator. Charles looks up at him, lips stretched and contrasting gorgeously against Arthur’s lighter skin, and Arthur is taken entirely by surprise at his release with nothing save for a gasping sound.

Charles takes it beautifully, no hesitation as he presses even closer to Arthur and holds him while trembles. Presses his tongue against the length of Arthur and swallows his spend as Charles’ long lashes curl against his cheek, handsome and debauched. Charles doesn’t pull off for a long moment, leaving Arthur’s cock to soften in his mouth and working his lips over it almost reverently. Sensitive and overwhelmed, Arthur groans his name in a desperate plea for something he doesn’t know how to word, how to say out loud. Good man that he is, Charles seems to understand him nonetheless, and pulls off slow and easy. Licks his lips like he wants to savour this, and presses open-mouthed kisses to the base of Arthur’s cock and the surrounding skin while Arthur catches his breath.

With guiding hands, Charles shifts Arthur’s pants enough that he can sit down on the blanket, careful of the newly-bandaged wounds. Once he’s down, Charles leans over him, presses Arthur back as he props up on a hand and an elbow to meet Arthur’s mouth in a languid kiss. Their tongues press and glide against each other’s, foreign to Arthur but the forgiving pace asking for nothing more than what he has to give. Charles tastes of spend and spit, and it should be dirty but Arthur can only think that this is their form of giving, of vulnerability. This is the most open that Charles has ever been, honed into exactly what he wants and taking it from Arthur with a definitive grace that says he knows Arthur will give him whatever he asks. And he will, couldn’t dream of denying Charles a damn thing. Charles licks into his mouth and it feels like love, like acceptance. 

Charles is careful not to press any weight into Arthur’s wounds, but he can feel the hard length of Charles’ arousal pressed into his thigh. It puts pressure on one of his bruises and the ache of it is both curative and erotic, not pain but a redefining of his damages. It allows Arthur to think of Charles before he thinks of his torture, to assign a new context to his agonies. There is no way for Charles to know, no way for it to be a deliberate act, and somehow it is still the greatest gift that Charles could give to him. Love is uncontrollable, something that happens to even the witless. The selflessness of devotion, both intentional and incidental, is a stronger form of love. It’s the foundation that stands when the house burns down. It’s a tie between two people that never really breaks, that cements them as no longer _you and me_ but _us_ , a cohesive structure.

Charles’ mere existence is the thing that starts to unwind Arthur’s mind. He can feel the cold little thing in him melting at last, warmed to his soul in the knowledge that he is not alone. For so long he had been denying himself any true pleasure in order to punish himself for every wrong turn along the path, but in this little world between him and Charles where shame does not exist and he defines the road, there is no need to flagellate. There is no resentment here, no remorse. There is only the two of them, every flaw apparent and still joined at every inch. Arthur is allowed to have this, and finds that he doesn’t want anything else.

Hands searching blindly, Arthur finds Charles’ waist and tries to drag the man into his lap. Charles chuckles against his mouth, an action that near whites-out Arthur’s mind for a split second, and instead he slips an arm underneath Arthur and shifts easily so that Arthur is straddling his lap instead. “Bastard,” Arthur mutters fondly in the inch of space they’re sharing, and Charles just smiles and gives his ass a playful squeeze, pulling Arthur a bit closer as he does so. The intimacy between them is effortless, in the way that only two people that have wanted each other for longer than they’re willing to admit always is. Arthur finds the clasp of Charles’ pants uninterrupted, and earns himself an audible groan as his knuckles graze over the weeping head of Charles’ cock. 

Charles buries his face into Arthur’s throat, breathing deeply as Arthur licks his palm and takes him into his hand. “Arthur,” he gasps, sounding wrecked. “Nicimos,” he says, and Arthur doesn’t know what it means but the sweetness of Charles’ voice makes him sure that he wants to hear it again. 

“What did you call me?” Arthur asks him, softly and with his lips pressed to the shell of Charles’ ear. The question is more to hear Charles speak again, to try and catch some evidence of his voice breaking or a stammered word. Arthur is collecting each instance of lost composure, feeding on the feeling of pride that accompanies every blatant display of emotion that Charles displays.

Charles tilts his head back to look at Arthur again, mouth hanging open and lips curved up just so slightly. It would be endearing if it didn’t smack straight into Arthur’s gut, sending a bolt of heat through him. Charles shifts to lean back on one hand, the other grasping at Arthur’s face, his chin nestled snugly in Charles’ palm. Arthur tries and fails to smother the moan that it pulls out of him, sudden and keening. “My lover,” Charles says quietly, his voice giving away nothing even as his hips twitch. Arthur moves his hand faster, slick with precum and spit. “My sweet thing,” Charles says, his voice breaking just barely as Arthur palms at himself. Arthur can’t seem to help himself, free of shame and full to bursting with the way Charles watches him hungrily, wantingly, fingers still holding tight to Arthur’s jaw. 

Charles sits up suddenly, the hand that was supporting him coming forward to pull Arthur’s length free once more. He pauses and looks consideringly at Arthur, and uses the hand on his jaw to open Arthur’s mouth just enough that when the other hand is held up, Arthur knows to draw his tongue across it. It’s a form of exhibitionism that Arthur would’ve never attributed to himself, but the way that Charles’ eyes darken is worth the risk. Charles uses the slicked palm to grasp both of their cocks, gasping at the feeling just as Arthur does. Charles tilts Arthur’s head to the side, burying his face against the junction of Arthur’s throat and shoulder.

Maybe there is something aggressive in their grabbing and holding, the way they reach for each other. It seems that way for split seconds, worry hovering over the elation like a bird searching for a steady branch to land on. Before the worry can ever settle itself, Charles reminds him that this is love making, not a romp. He kisses Arthur’s neck so tenderly, so clearly in reverence that it cannot be mistaken for anything but near worship. The grip of his hand on Arthur’s jaw slackens and falls as he nears his finish, and Charles kisses his mouth with a sound so desperate that Arthur brushes his hands through Charles hair softly, as if to say _I’m here, I’m here_. Charles wraps an arm around Arthur’s middle and comes not with a moan but with a mantra, murmuring Arthur’s name over and over like its the only thought going through his mind. And then he brings Arthur off again, gently and slowly, whispering his adorations into Arthur’s ear.

They use one of the wet rags from Arthur’s bathing to clean themselves off, refusing to untangle for anything longer than a moment. The air is cool and refreshing, and though the ground beneath them is rough, the blanket takes most of the edge off. Arthur lays with his head on Charles chest, one arm sling over Charles and the other tucked up beneath his own chest. Charles toys with Arthur’s hair, eyes half-closed and mouth curved up enough that it speaks to how contented he’s feeling. Arthur finds himself smiling before he knows it.

They’re safe. They’re alive. They’re together, undefined but so clearly devoted to each other that Arthur doesn’t fear a thing.

Whatever happens, they’ll face it with someone beside them. That’s more than he’d ever asked for. It’s more than Arthur ever thought he’d get.

—

Karen’s hollering is beginning to be recognized as some kind of alarm, the way people gather before they’ve even made sense of what she’s saying. It’s a strange sort of sweetness, the Van der Linde gang - after so many months, Charles really does understand why Arthur protects it so strongly.

Their ride back to camp was slow, closer to three days than Charles would’ve preferred considering Arthur’s condition. He decides to appreciate the time alone that he gets to spend with Arthur instead of fretting, but there’s always the undercurrent of fear that comes along with wounds, with torture. Arthur isn’t ready to discuss what had happened while in Colm’s hands, likely he can hardly remember much of it. Charles gives him that space happily, no questions asked, but he wishes there was an easier way to say _Whenever you need it, I’m here_. 

(They cross a lone bounty hunter in the way back. A gunshot would echo for miles across the plains, so Charles wrestles the pistol out of the man’s hands and thuds the grip of it into his assailant’s chest. The resounding crack draws a gasp out of the bounty hunter and unexpectedly Arthur, whose shuffling sounds of movement go strangely silent. Once Charles is sure the bounty hunter is dead, he turns to find Arthur standing right behind him and, from the look in his eyes, far away from the real world around them. Charles takes Arthur’s hands in his own and speaks to him softly, calmly, until Arthur gradually seems to remember himself. They don’t speak about it much, but Charles is no fool. Nor is Arthur. So Charles ghosts his fingers over Arthur’s ribs and Arthur kisses those questing hands, and they reach a silent understanding through that alone.)

The trip has changed the two of them completely, on their own and together. That’s what they are now, Charles thinks warmly. He and Arthur are together, unequivocally. He gets to kiss Arthur, hold him, to murmur sweet things and borderline raunchy things just to watch him squirm. While he knows the bond they’ve been building for so long isn’t going anywhere, Charles would be lying if he said he isn’t a bit worried about how the group will shift that dynamic. If it means that anything will have to get tucked away where they can’t be seen. If Charles can keep feeling this without bricking up a wall to keep anyone from seeing it. 

(The two nights of travel, they _do_ talk. About their parents, about their pasts. Follies and foibles, beds they’ve fallen into. People they’ve hurt, with reason and without. What turned them from men who do wrong into outlaws, into men who do wrong professionally. They talk about everything, two taciturn men under an open sky, saying every single thing they’ve never wanted to say to anyone else. It’s cathartic. “What are we?” Arthur asks, quiet in the wake of their conversation. “In love, I reckon,” says Charles, and even though he isn’t quite looking he knows that Arthur’s answering smile is a brighter beacon than any single star that floats above them. It’s a give and take of good and bad, and Charles wouldn’t trade it for anything else. They simply don’t need anything else.)

By the time they reach the camp, Adelaide and Arthur up front and Charles on Taima behind them to keep an eye open during the long trip, half the camp is already stacked like sardines and reaching at Arthur like he’s a king making an appearance. He smiles tiredly but kindly, giving Tilly’s hand a squeeze and letting John help him down from his mare. 

Charles notes how Arthur seems to glow in the presence of his people, how clearly open and relieved he seems as Sadie hugs him tightly and Jack clings to his leg. How warmly he smiles at Tilly and Mary-Beth, how fond Miss Grimshaw’s biting words seem to sound as she herds Arthur to his bed to give his wounds a proper seeing-to. 

“It certainly got him home, Mr. Smith,” she says to Charles without looking, as he and Arthur share a bemused glance. “But you can tell it’s work from the road, and that just won’t do.”

“Duly noted,” Charles answers only somewhat facetiously as he finds a pot to boil some water in, knowing Susan will need it before long. “Just glad it got him back in one piece.” 

He looks up to see Arthur watching him, a fond smile curling his mouth. Susan is watching Arthur, her eyes flicking towards Charles as a curious sort of smirk seems to overtake her mouth without her knowing it. “We all knew you’d bring him back, Mr. Smith,” she says, all the while looking Arthur dead in the eye. Charles chuckles, leaving them to their own devices as he goes off in search of clean water.

Charles helps Susan periodically for the next few hours, happy to keep busy but also appreciating sharing the weight of keeping Arthur alive with someone. He knows Susan to be wonderfully capable and completely intolerant of poor decision making while wounded. Charles had been under her watchful eye for long enough when wounded himself by the bison hunter, and knowing that Arthur is in her hands leaves him feeling safe and sure. Charles takes a moment to breathe and reorient himself, knowing that getting too caught up in Arthur’s recovery will be detrimental to both of them. There are other things to be done, chores and jobs that can’t be neglected, and if Arthur is out of the lineup for a while then the gang has fewer capable gun hands to work with. The O’Driscolls might come after them - not like there’s any doubt about who broke out Arthur Morgan. Even if they don’t, that’s not the only enemy that Dutch has made, historical or recent. 

Having too much control over the life of a loved one is a burden that no one should have to carry. Helping and caring is something intimate and important, but having control and failing is an irrevocable guilt. Charles is glad to no longer bear the brunt of that weight, to no longer be the only one who can pull the soiled gauze from his shoulder wound and fear opening his eyes to infection or rot. 

It’s a miracle of some sort, that Arthur managed to survive. With all his limbs, even. Charles sits down for a moment, between chores and check-ins and strangely bereft without something to be doing. So he takes a moment to feel, to think. To process everything that’s happened in the past week, a constant barrage of events that have left Charles feeling and thinking with little thought and no reservations. There are worse things - a rash moment is still incapable of making Charles a rash man - but it’s still something he has to consider, to mull over. Arthur is alive and against all odds, it seems that he wants Charles. Wants him in all the ways Charles has been wanting, silently and patiently. His brain wants to run wild with the information, to hoot and holler in both relief and celebration, but the last few weeks have been far too long and there is not much energy to be had for mental hootenanny. Instead, Charles just takes a moment to breathe.

He heads down to the river and takes a long bath, the cold water biting at his weary skin. Blood has caked thoroughly into his favorite blue shirt, unsalvageable no matter how long he scrubs at it with the salt paste kept on-hand in the chuckwagon. His bandage and eagle feathers are far beyond saving, but easier to replace than the old shirt. He saves two strips of unbloodied linen from near the hem, thin but neat and just long enough for his plans. Charles helps Karen with her chores in return for a few pieces of twine she’d been saving for some kind of hairstyle she wants to try. She’s happy enough to part ways with it, when Charles hints at his intentions. Even gives him a crooked little grin, like she knows exactly what he’s saying no matter how vague he intentionally leaves his explanation. Susan catches him in his tent while he’s preparing the final pieces; two wide, flat strips of bison hide. It’s the same hide from the bison that he and Arthur had taken down together long ago, when they first started saying more to each other than just cordial greetings. Charles remembers how much time he’d spent staring at Arthur, even back then, how long he’d spent trying to think of a task reasonable enough to ask along the gang’s most valued man. He’s thinking of Arthur’s surprised, almost shy smile when Charles had asked for his company when the hand lands on his shoulder. 

“He’s asking for you,” Susan says, her generally severe expression softened as she looks down at Charles and his work. “I’ve already dressed his wounds for the day, but we’re running low on poultice. Why don’t you spend some time with him while you replenish our stock?” 

Charles nods at her, his hands still working over the black-stained leather. He’d punched two rows of little holes in the hide, and is now weaving the strips of linen and twine through the holes with braided patterns and squared wooden beads interspersed. Two bracelets, perfectly matching each other. He’s in the groove of it now, fingers tangled up in the materials. “Sure,” he nods, eyes unmoving from his work. “This will only take me a few minutes longer.”

Susan nods, watching curiously. Attentively. Charles has always wondered what all she sees, what Susan really knows about the lot of them. They stand in silence for a moment when Susan straightens up with a thoughtful noise, looking around her like she’s just remembered something. 

“You asked me weeks ago to take this into town, get it properly adhered together.” She’s found her satchel and rifles through it, speaking as she searches. “That damn trapper is a nuisance, he is, but he does good work. Ah!” She pulls something out triumphantly, a piece of faded white linen folded up and tied shut with a bit of string. Susan hands it to Charles, her mouth curling. “I’d forgotten about it completely in all the mess with Arthur’s capture. Somehow, I get the feeling this and your craftsmanship there are meant to go together.” 

Charles finds himself smiling, watching as she sets the package down gently beside him in the grass. For a moment, the bracelet in his hands is forgotten as he meets Susan’s eyes. “Thank you,” he says quietly, earnestly. “Thank you for this.”

Susan gives his shoulder a firm pat, as good a show of their understanding as any, and turns to leave. Charles halts her as he turns in his spot, catching her gaze once more. 

“Mary,” he says, cocking his head. “Is she still in camp?”

“She left quite soon after her and Sadie’s return, said she didn’t want to distract from Arthur’s recovery. I think she just didn’t want to hear the news first hand if he’d died,” Susan says, blunt but unaccusing. “Can’t say I blame the girl. She did say that she’d write, once she was settled back down at home.”

Charles hums, thinking. “Couldn’t blame her either,” he says after a pause, looking back down to his work. “Thanks, again. Get some rest.”

“Happily,” Susan chuckles, leaving him once more to work in silence. 

The sun sets slowly, the air cooling down enough that once Charles is finally done with the bracelets he digs his coat out of his chest of belongings. It’s an old one, a ruddy brown tone and lined with fur. Charles replaces the bit of string on the folded linen with the bracelet, tightened just enough to hold it all closed, and tucks it into his deep pockets.

The smell of the fur, aged and distinct, reminds him of Colter. In the wake of disaster and a mere handful of weeks after Charles’ joining the gang, tensions were high. Charles was barely a notch above silent at that time, monosyllabic at best and still observing, still ready to pick up and leave at the first sign of real internal trouble. He recalls hunting with Arthur and thinking him a violent dullard. A brute with influence only due to his lasting so long, to his apparent position as stepson to Dutch and Hosea alike. Arthur had been angry then, quick to lose his temper and difficult to corral once he got going. Charles distinctly remembers looking at Arthur and thinking that if it weren’t for his being so difficult to kill, he’d be shockingly easy to replace with little difference made. 

How wrong Charles had been. How pleased he is now, to be proven wrong. 

When Charles reaches Arthur’s tent, he realizes that Arthur is dead asleep. One arm tucked up under his pillow and the other hanging off the side of his cot, and snoring away quietly. It’s sweet, and comforting enough that Charles sits himself in the extra chair Susan had brought it and puts himself to work there despite Arthur’s unconscious state. The blankets are pulled up to Arthur’s chest, only his shoulder wrappings visible, but Charles finds it a relief to not have to look at the wounds for just a moment. To not have to think of Arthur’s previously impending death, and now just think about going from alright to well. From decent to good health. The world was upended for a short time, and Charles is happy to let the dust settle, and let Arthur sleep.

When the few jars of depleted poultices are refilled, Arthur is still sleeping deeply. Charles takes a moment to just watch him, drowsy himself and left feeling at ease by the shadows of night that have fallen around them. This little pocket of the world is not so different from their camp, right after recovering Arthur. A place where no one is watching, and where no one knows there is a thing even worth watching at all. The last remnants of terror have finally seemed to quell, and Charles can finally breathe. 

He puts away the jars and cleans up after himself, putting everything back where it should be on Arthur’s table for Susan tomorrow. Charles brushes Arthur’s hair back from his head and presses a soft kiss there, earning an endearing little hum from the sleeping man. The package in his pocket could wait, but since he fell asleep so early Charles is sure that Arthur will wake before dawn, and there’s no doubt that he will be restless. To give him a distraction, something to think about, Charles leaves the package and the bracelet beside Arthur’s pillow to be found when he wakes. 

Making his way to his own tent, Charles shucks his boots and coat and slips into his bedroll. It’s comfortable there, under broadcloth and furs. Warm and familiar, a balm to the last few weeks of turmoil. It’s exactly how he remembers it being, before everything that’s happened. 

It’d be perfect, if he weren’t alone in it. 

Charles falls asleep toying with the hand-woven bracelet on his wrist, thinking of how else his world is going to change in the days to come. Sleep comes easier when he is reminded of the one thing he knows for sure - Charles knows whose side he will be on, and that makes all changes far simpler.


	7. precipice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charles’ influence on his person has brought to light the man that Arthur has always dreamed of being, the man he’s feared he could never manage to become. 
> 
> If anyone has earned Arthur’s loyalty, it’s Charles Smith.

“What the hell is this?”

Arthur has limped his way to Charles, where he is stood by Taima and is humming to her a low and rhythmic tune in the still morning silence. It’s early October now, past crisp and well towards cold, and nearly always overcast due to how far north their camp currently is. Charles is brushing Taima with slow, deliberate movements, and Arthur notices that Charles’ own hair is still a bit of a wreck with pieces sticking messily out of his loosened braid. He’s got one wide hand gently holding the groove of her chin, and when Charles turns to look at him Arthur sees that his nose and ears have reddened from the cold into a rich, hickory-toned flush. 

With a sudden urgency, Arthur wants to kiss him. To bump his own reddening nose against Charles’ and see if it would draw a laugh out of him, see if he would make a contented noise from the shared body heat. It’s fanciful and not possible in the least, so instead Arthur just stares at Charles’ bemused expression and waves the linen package around with just a touch of hysteria. 

“Hello, Arthur.” Charles smiles slightly, looking thoroughly entertained as Arthur rolls his eyes.

“Mornin’, Charles. How ‘bout this weather? Real fuckin’ cold, feelin’ like my balls might just head south for the winter and leave me by my lonesome.” 

Charles coughs out a surprised laugh, setting the brush down as Arthur steps closer and leans against one of the hitching posts. “That would be a shame,” he teases, ignoring Arthur’s monotonous sarcasm.

Charles gave him a gift. Charles _made_ him a gift, two of them in fact, and they’re both beautiful and smell of the sweet-scented oil that Charles uses when he carves. Or does any of his crafting, Arthur thinks as he looks down at the black band around his wrist. It’s charming, narrow enough to not draw any attention but intricate up close. Personal but not invisible. The twine is knotted in a way that allows it to slide from wide to narrow, so Arthur can easily slip it over his wide hands. Comfortable, practical, beautiful - Charles’ handiwork without a doubt, so clearly his trademark that Arthur thinks he could have guessed the craftsman without a hint.

The linen is folded around a blade, hardly taller than a letter opener but wider and just barely curved. There’s no guard on the blade, just a small swell of metal just above the hilt for a thumb to grab purchase when held. Arthur’s attention had been caught the most by the hilt; he’d stared at it for nearly an hour when he woke to find the package, the candlelight glinting off the polished surface of the carved bison horn. It's the shape of a rearing stag, the antlers perfectly staggered to taper into the smooth notches where his fingers slide into a steady grip on the hilt. The carving is adorned with distinctively native patterning, ambiguous to Arthur’s untrained eye but different enough from other styles he’s seen that he can assume it’s specifically Cree. The hilt, similar to the blade, is a touch wide but narrow enough that it could comfortably slide into the strapping sewn into the inner lining of his boot. It’s not a fighting blade but a skinning blade, clearly made to get a good grip for stripping flesh from meat and meat from bone. 

Comfortable, practical, beautiful. Arthur runs his thumb over the textured hilt from where it’s hidden beneath the linen and tries to bite back his smile. Charles flicks his eyes down, and Arthur tries uselessly to convince himself that the expression he’s seeing is anything but endearingly fond. 

“You like them, then?” Charles looks back up at Arthur, leaning back against Taima and lighting a cigarette. “The blade isn’t too small?”

“It’s perfect,” Arthur says, softer than he intends to, and gratefully takes the cigarette when Charles hands it to him wordlessly. “That curve in the blade, is that - what’s-his-name, from Saint Denis? The squirrely one?”

Charles laughs, nodding. “Lee Kelley, yes. Good eye. I had some help from the tanner you always track down, as well.” He takes the cigarette back as Arthur offers it and takes a drag. Reaches back to card his fingers through Taima’s mane when she nickers.

Arthur hums, nods. That makes sense - help from a blacksmith and a tanner, to forge a lasting hunting blade. It’s involved, and Arthur can hardly think about how long it must have taken Charles to make it. How long ago he must’ve started making it. 

They stand in a companionable silence for some time, until Charles flicks his cigarette and straightens. As he passes by Arthur, Charles’ hand lands on his shoulder. It looks casual, familiar, but it sends a jolt through Arthur that he knows Charles shares from the cock of his head, the twitch in his brow. It’s somehow intimate, the way his fingers curl tighter into the muscle of Arthur’s shoulder. The extra moments that he lingers there, an inch closer than usual and still filling up Arthur’s senses. 

“Enjoy them,” Charles says quietly, sharing a small smile with Arthur. “And try not to kill anyone with that thing.”

“No promises, Mister Smith,” Arthur chuckles, leaning further into Charles’ space like a dog after a scent, like a cat after warmth. “But I sure can try.”

\--

Arthur is still healing up when Dutch decides that Angelo Bronte has insulted them long enough. 

The fearless leader of their gang rides into camp covered in swamp muck, bitching up a storm and stomping his way to his tent while Molly traipses along behind him. Their bickering is loud and animated, as is their ensuing forgiveness. Hosea, seated across the fire from Charles, rolls his eyes to high heaven but doesn’t say a word. Bill and Javier don’t seem to possess the same degree of tact, and poke fun until it goes on long enough that even mocking them isn’t enjoyable anymore. Dutch emerges a few hours later, freshly dressed and grinning like a cat who’s caught to canary. Charles watches warily, whittling down sticks into arrows as Dutch swaggers up to the fire the men are all grouped around. 

It’s dark now, and most of them are well-taken to drink since there wasn’t any real work to be had today. Chores, sure, but nothing violent. It leaves a certain handful of their gun hands itching, twitchy in a way that little but alcohol can quell. That readiness to bite at the first thing that moves means that when Dutch starts some rambling spiel about how it’s finally time that Bronte learns the cost of crossing the Van der Linde gang, he gets cheers in response. As if anyone were waiting on the edge of their seat for the chance to get back at a man who meant nothing, and not just antsy to get out of camp.

Dutch asks him along with a sly smile. “With Arthur still on the mend, I need a stoic brute at my side. It just wouldn’t be the same,” he says with a cackle, thoroughly enjoying his own joke. Charles just huffs out a noise that could vaguely be construed as laughter by a narcissistic fool. 

“Sure.” Charles just nods, looks back down at his work. He doesn’t miss the way Dutch narrows his eyes, the rigid line of him where he stands with one leg propped up on a chair and leaned against his knee. Charles sees it, but doesn’t care enough to do anything but sit back in his favorite, rickety chair and act like he didn’t see a thing. 

They go after Bronte the next night, through the swamps on a little skiff belonging to a Cajun man named Thomas. Charles likes Thomas immensely, finding him to be witty and kindly as they talk quietly while Bill and John holler about the alligator population. Dutch tries and valiantly fails to not scrunch his nose at the scenery, and Charles shares a knowing look with Thomas. It’s a clean excursion, the group of four slipping into the massive estate and snatching Bronte from the comfort of his home before anyone realizes what’s actually going on. 

Charles hadn’t originally thought that they were _capturing_ the man, and he isn’t sure that he wants to know what Dutch has planned as he manhandles the hogtied man into the rocking skiff. Kieran’s captivity was bad enough, particularly after the first week with the kid still not giving up a word. Angelo Bronte had personally affronted Dutch’s place as a capable leader - Catherine Braithwaite had done the same, and Dutch had forced her to watch while he slaughtered and then obliterated everything she’d ever known. His wrath is becoming a natural disaster, a force without boundaries or sense in the face of vengeance. 

Silently, Charles watches as Dutch threatens Bronte. Watches as it drifts from idle belittling into Dutch shouting, wild-eyed and lost in his own furious monologue. Watches as Dutch takes Bronte firmly by the scruff of his neck and wrenches his body up to smother him in the swamps of Lakay. 

They all watch, assuming that he’ll let up. That this is something to terrify Bronte, to control him. Make him more amenable to whatever it is that Dutch has planned. Which doesn’t turn out to be necessarily wrong, as Dutch drowns the most powerful man in Saint Denis and shoves him over the edge of their boat for the curious gator approaching them. 

Charles certainly thinks that Angelo Bronte would’ve opposed being fed to an alligator, were he alive. Fighting against that plan posthumously is tricky. 

“Jesus,” John breathes, staring at Dutch like he’s a stranger. He is, Charles supposes, particularly to the man who is basically an adopted son. “What part of your philosophy books cover feeding a feller to a goddamn alligator, Dutch?”

“The part that covers weakness, John Marston. That part,” Dutch grates out, looking that the faces that surround him and seeming to just now notice that his entourage is not entirely on board with his stunt. 

“I don’t know,” John says, staring out into the murky water where the alligator drifts slowly towards Angelo Bronte’s corpse. 

“Well, I do!” Dutch snaps, turning on his heel and climbing out of the boat. “It ain’t nice, I know it. But it was either us, or him!” Dutch turns back to Charles and John, who are still standing in the skiff. He is higher than them by a few feet, from his self-appointed podium, and uses the advantage to make a point. To both intimidate and to make sure he’s seen clearly as that firm stance softens into lowered shoulders, into that slanted look that Dutch gets sometimes. _Can’t you see I’m just trying to do what’s right?_ It says, but the effect is hollowed when it’s used on John and Charles. John is just too familiar with Dutch’s bullshit, having grown up with it, and Charles has never been easy to manipulate. 

“I figure it might as well be him,” Dutch sighs, looking down at them like a disappointed father, and Charles wonders how he got himself so thoroughly entrenched in this mess of a gang. 

John climbs out of the skiff clumsily, thanking Charles over his shoulder as Charles steadies the little boat with his hands braced against the dock. Dutch’s shiny black shoes appear in his vision as Charles goes to hoist himself out, and he reluctantly takes the hand that Dutch offers in assistance. Dutch yanks Charles forward too quickly, leaving him fighting for his balance as his feet reach the dock. Using this to get a grasp on Charles without obstruction, Dutch gets a hand in Charles’ shirt and forces himself into Charles space. It’s subtle enough that no one looks but Thomas, who seems worried but unsure how willing he is to risk his own skin with the rest of Dutch’s group right in front of them. 

“I understand that you’re not quite as used to running with a group, Mister Smith,” Dutch says in a low voice, tone sickening sweet and so casual that it’s like an alarm flare for how volatile his mood really is beneath the mask. “But when you are part of the flock, you listen to the shepherd. My philosophy book covers disloyalty, too, and the treatment for such an ailment ain’t so different from Bronte’s fate.” Dutch smiles, big and far too full of teeth, and drops his hold of Charles’ shirt. He tries to shove Charles back a bit in the process, sprawling his palm and pushing against Charles’ chest as if Dutch assumes his footing is still off. The hand hardly even tilts Charles, expressionless as he stares down at Dutch and doesn’t move an inch. It sates some vindictive little part of Charles, as he steps forward and knocks himself hard into Dutch’s shoulder. Not direct insubordination, but a reminder that Charles is not a creature to be cowed. It’s something that Dutch seems to have forgotten, the way his face contorts into something caught equally between outrage and concern. 

Charles knows that Dutch had wanted to plan Arthur’s rescue, to set out at the break of dawn and save his surrogate son in some harebrained attempt to reinstill Arthur’s wavering loyalty. Waking to find that his best and only true tracker had taken off in the night to save Arthur himself, to take that reward of Arthur’s adoration for himself, was a targeted insult. 

In Dutch’s mind, Charles had stolen from him. Stolen his son and then stolen his only significant chance to get that son back under Dutch’s ruling thumb.

Charles is glad that Dutch doesn’t know just how much of Arthur’s adoration he really has. That it hadn’t taken Arthur’s rescue to shift his loyalties, but months of mistakes and foolhardy schemes on Dutch’s part to demolish the idolized idea that Arthur had always had of his found father. He wonders if Dutch is half aware of their growing closeness and thinks that Charles is whispering in Arthur’s ear, trying to turn him against the gang that made him for some sinister reason. It would be nice to believe that Dutch is coming from a good place, a place of fear but still borne of compassion. 

As Charles shoves past Dutch, the man scowls and watches Charles walk towards the rest of the group. It would be nice to believe, yes, but Charles doesn’t trust Dutch one bit. It’s Arthur who needs to lose a little loyalty, despite Dutch’s delusions of abandonment. Charles has no plans to turn Arthur against his people, his family, but he doesn’t plan to let Arthur devote himself to death either. There has to be a middle ground somewhere, a solution to be found in the midst of impending disaster.

Something has to break. 

\--

Things so wrong so quickly that before Arthur even realizes what’s happening, his world is falling apart. Dutch tries and tries to make them all see him as a phoenix rising from the ashes of the family they’ve been for years, but it doesn’t work. They’re divided, and they’re scared of Dutch and what he’s willing to do. They’re scared of the Pinkertons, a snake in the grass that could strike at any moment. Too afraid to stay and too afraid to leave, the tension in camp becomes its own catalyst just waiting to implode.

The end of everything begins with Sean.

In all the distraction with Jack’s abduction, Dutch left the situation in Rhodes to simmer for far too long. By the time they get word from some Gray boys that they need some paid help, the degree of tension had been somewhat forgotten. Maybe it’s that they weren’t paying enough attention, maybe it was truly an accident, and maybe it’s another one of Micah’s fool plans gone horribly wrong just like all the rest before. 

Sean dies with no warning, no fanfare. Just the explosion of silence into noise as a rifle shell shatters it’s way from one side of the young man’s skull through the other. A chunk of his skull just disappears, leaving a dark gap in its place that roils Arthur’s stomach like nothing has before. 

It’s not the first death he’s seen, and it’s one of the least grisly by a long shot. Despite that, Arthur trembles down to his bones that entire shootout. He’s still got a steady hand, still manages to execute three men before the trio can kill the unarmed man they’ve taken hostage. Bill doesn’t have a scrape on him other than his original wound from the ambush, and Arthur and Micah are both unscathed. But Arthur trembles, no doubt about it. Sean’s death is different - he doesn’t know how, not yet, but he knows that.

\--

The next deaths are worse.

The gang moves to Shady Belle, hiding out in the depths of the swamps while they wait for things to settle down. They’re settled there for hardly a fortnight when Hosea brings up the Saint Denis bank job, and claims that it will solve their problems if they can just execute correctly. That’s the secret - proper execution of a plan. 

Hosea has never been one for a rush job, never willing to risk their necks over money. Not even when he, Arthur and Dutch were starving, just the three of them years younger in a little camp in the cold. It seems right in the moment, when the plan is coming out of Hosea’s mouth, and so Arthur deems it relatively safe and simple enough to work. They’re at risk, and Dutch isn’t wrong when he harps on how urgently they need to flee this stretch of states they bounce around. Too populated and too well known, running out of places to hide. 

It’s not until later that some truth begins to dawn on Arthur. That maybe Hosea was getting desperate, trying to get them out from Dutch’s failing judgement. That Hosea was just as scared as the rest of them, and therefore equally liable to make mistakes. Hosea is good under pressure, but no one is at their best when their family is fraying apart and turning to tatters before their eyes. When the law hangs just outside their purview and death follows in its footsteps.

It’s not until Arthur watches red bloom across his adoptive father’s chest that he thinks Hosea was rash, pushing them into something in a desperate attempt to save them. It’s not until Hosea slumps to the ground with a dull thud and Dutch lets out a roar of grief that he thinks, _there’s no coming back from this._

When Lenny dies, leaping the even-keel rooftops of the city, it solidifies the ache in him. Two good, young men and his father figure gone in the span of a month. Shot like sick dogs with no time to grieve for any one of them. Dutch barely looks at Lenny’s corpse, barely sees as he slumps against the roof tiling and goes still. 

It’s a blessing, at least, that none of them struggled. That none of them lay in the dust and drowned in their own blood while the gang tried to kill enough police to get to them. No, they were all dead as quickly as the shots came. Here and gone quick as a gasp. 

Doesn’t make it any easier, but it does make things simpler. There’s always a sense of _might have_ when it comes to saving the dead - this time there’s just the dead, nothing to do but collect their bodies to cover with soil and hope that there’s an afterlife for poor souls who wanted something more than what they got.

\--

Guarma is more like a fever dream than a month-long stretch of violent vacation. 

Arthur can hardly believe it’s real, as he helps free imprisoned workers and take down a tyrannical sugar baron. It feels like what he used to be, what he always imagined himself as. Something more genuine and noble. Hercule is more kind than they deserve and saves their lives more than once, something that Arthur takes every opportunity to thank him for. Bill accuses him of brownnosing, and Micah picks at anything he can think to pick at just to entertain himself. Dutch is too distracted with himself to do much but tease Arthur, half-hearted and clearly noncommittal. 

Hercule lays a hand on Arthur’s shoulder and thanks him kindly, quietly, and none of them seem to matter in those moments.

Arthur spends most of his time with Hercule, when the man isn’t off taking care of the complicated insurgency that he’s nursing back to health. It’s an impressive endeavor, a true army made of nothing but those who have been wronged and their sheer willpower to break free from their chains. In those calm moments, he reminds Arthur deeply of Charles. It’s the closest thing he has to that soothing presence that he’s become so accustomed to, the only stable person that Arthur finds himself able to be around. Hercule is a comfort, and Arthur thinks that maybe he can tell from how he seeks Arthur out more than is necessary. Talks with him, always laying a hand on him and graciously not commenting on how the tension seems to drain out of Arthur as he does so.

No matter how strong, how vicious the man, there is always something human that reaches out. That needs acknowledgement, a sense of belonging.

They form a strange sort of friendship on that island. Arthur serves as a reprieve from war for Hercule, a source of interesting and barely-believable stories from a world unlike his own. Hercule in turn reminds Arthur of what a true benevolent leader looks like, how a man who leads and serves a group bound only by shared need and loyalty speaks to his allies. There is a deep respect that fuels Hercule’s actions and words, and whenever Arthur is around and a man comes to Hercule with a concern or a new idea they discuss it thoroughly. It’s not always a good idea, and when it’s genuinely stupid Hercule is not afraid of saying as much. Yet, while doing so he never talks down to his men. Good ideas are taken to heart and concerns are openly explored until both parties walk away knowing exactly where they stand. 

It’s how the gang worked years ago, a well-oiled machine that requires both small and large cogs to function. Arthur isn’t sure when that stopped, but watching the civil war grind on makes it clear that it’s been a long time since they’ve been anything even close to cohesive. 

When the boat anchors down in Van Horn, splaying Arthur out from the others to avoid detection, he notices the cold seep back in with the cooler air. He is home again, familiar dirt under his feet. Dutch’s thumb once again hangs over the future, casting an obscuring shadow on the days to come. 

Maybe no one will even be around to feel Dutch’s ire. Anything could have happened in the past few weeks.

Finding the letter in the abandoned Shady Belle hideout is both a relief and an urge to panic, knowing that there’s no reason they’d move so soon unless the Pinkertons had found them. Luckily, Lakay isn’t far and Arthur rides as quickly as he can. His stolen horse is still flighty and unsure, but she’s strong and agreeable enough as appropriated horses come and go. 

The new hideout is difficult to find. Tracking in swamps is hardly Arthur’s strong suit, and whatever hunting acumen he does have proves useless in the unfamiliar terrain. He stumbles across more than a few groups of outlaws and strange folk before finally creeping into an area with enough buildings it might actually home the gang. He’s still cautious, ducked low and peeking around a corner when he sees Pearson and Miss Grimshaw speaking quietly, though from the looks of it not pleasantly either. 

Arthur jolts upright, nearly losing his balance as he steps forward suddenly and involuntarily. Miss Grimshaw sees him first, scared at first as she surely assumes he’s a stranger. He watches as the recognition lights her up, watches Pearson go through the same expressions as he looks towards whatever she’s gawking at. 

It’s a warm welcome, considering that he’s the first one to make his way back to them out of the four missing men. He’s the first sign of life in a month of terror, and they in turn are the same to him. Sadie looks tired but wildly happy, Tilly nearly in tears beside her. Mary-Beth touches his face, smiling so wide it must hurt, and he puts her hand over hers and gives it a fond squeeze. Javier braces arms with him, pleased but still looking worried. It’s a narrow hall full of people, his people, all happy to see him. 

At the end of the hall, standing shock-still and staring, is Charles. 

A month ago, Charles had drawn the law off of them so they could escape. In the heart-pounding moments, coiled and ready to spring, Arthur hadn’t realized what that meant. Hadn’t realized until he washed up on the sands of Guarma and wandered deliriously across the beach in search of anything to keep him from drying up and dropping dead on a foreign beach. 

Charles, with little room for doubt, had every reason to think him dead.

Now, he stands in a little shack in the swamplands and stares at a ghost. Arthur knows he looks a mess, unkempt and unshaven, burnt a new color by the relentless sun of Guarma. He has wounds still healing from the shipwreck and the civil war, and surely looks battered and exhausted. 

With a slow smile, Charles steps towards him. Arthur does the same. Strong, sturdy arms envelop him in a hug and Arthur holds him back as tightly as he can, breathing in gunsmoke and safety. His hands run over the shaved sides of Charles hair, a fresh but small wound on his shoulder, the distinctive curve of his spine. 

“The hair suits you,” Arthur says as they pull back, chuckling as Charles runs a hand over the side of his own head thoughtfully. 

“I cut it to mourn,” Charles explains, blunt and solemn but still smiling. The openness of his answer makes Arthur feel exposed, makes him wish that Charles had waited to tell him until there was no one around to witness the comfort that Arthur wanted to give. “Maybe I’ll grow it back, now.”

\--

Over the next two days, the others find their way to Lakay intermittently. The gang knows they all survived, as Arthur had filled them in on the general details, but there’s no guarantee getting from the shore to camp. Dutch’s return is strange, the reunion enthusiastic but a tension filling the shack that wasn’t there before. Micah’s return is a disappointment to more than a few of them, and from his shit-eating grin he’s well aware of it. Bill is the last to burst his way through the door, pissed off and hollering when he’s received with less warmth than he was anticipating. 

The Pinkertons aren’t far behind, bringing destruction like they always do. 

Beaver Hollow is a lucky find, former Murfree inhabitants aside. Lots of space, hidden well behind heavy foliage but near enough to the main roads that it’s no hassle doing any jobs. Arthur likes it as well as he’s liked any of the campsites, neutral at worst and just glad to be out of the swamplands for a while. 

Which is why he’s unsettled by the unrest in him growing with every passing day. Dutch’s behavior is worsening, and he hardly even bothers to show remorse. 

The day that Eagle Flies comes to their camp, asking for their help and putting himself at Dutch’s mercy, is the beginning of the end. 

It’s blatantly clear that Dutch is using them as a means to an end, a scapegoat for the chaos so he and his few remaining loyal souls can go bask in the sun on some tropical island. It’s a fairytale, a fever dream borne of his inability to be held accountable for making the wrong decisions. Every job gone wrong leaves Dutch burrowing further into his fantasy of faraway beaches, an easy escape from the hellish consequences of their actions since Blackwater. Arthur is hardly without guilt, he knows that - doesn’t shy away from it, either. His awareness of that guilt is the driving force of his want for redemption, for repentance. Hosea’s death was the final straw, the shift at the precipice that drove Dutch down the fork in the road. 

Arthur chose to want more for himself, to do better. Dutch chose to live in denial, and now there’s no turning back from it. Arthur can see it now, defined and focused in his mind, and his anger takes the shape of resentful acceptance. He knows that there’s nothing to be done for Dutch - nothing that anyone outside of Dutch’s hectic mind can do. 

The best that Arthur can do is help mitigate the damage that Dutch inflicts on Rains Fall’s tribe, with Charles at his side. 

They haven’t had much time alone since Arthur’s return from Guarma, too many irons in the fire to do much more than sleep and eat in their sparse moments of downtime. Neither of them do much about it, equally invested in saving as many lives as they can. What time they do have is often spent speaking in low murmurs, figuring out what is most likely to happen and how to prepare for every possibility. 

Arthur is awake late one night, washing his clothes in the water basin when Charles comes up behind him. His arms, sturdy and warm in the autumn chill, rest on Arthur’s hips lightly. His grip tightens when Arthur leans back into him with a contented hum. 

“I can’t sleep, either,” Charles says in his ear, chin resting on his shoulder. Arthur nods, watching the suds bubble up in the fabric of his union suit with an idle fascination. 

“It’s been a long couple of weeks.” Charles hums his agreement, thumbs rubbing circles into the give of Arthur’s hips. “Lotta worry to be had.”

“That’s true,” Charles says as he turns Arthur around, clothes forgotten for the moment. “Easier to carry it if you share the weight.”

Caged in by strong arms, back to the table of the chuckwagon, Arthur should feel trapped. Would feel it, if it were anyone else. Instead, the proximity softens the tension in him so smoothly that Arthur leans into Charles. Hugging has never been high on the list of things Arthur is willing to do, but he feels comfortable. Safe and calm, centered and able to think clearly in a way that is often elusive for him. 

If this is the influence of intimacy, Arthur might just have to leave himself a bit more open to that sort of thing. 

“I’m worried ‘bout Dutch in a way I ain’t never been before.” Arthur’s voice is quiet in the night, hoarse and unsteady as he tries to straighten out his thoughts. “Twenty years I known Dutch, and he weren’t cruel to me once. He ‘n Hosea picked me up at fourteen, a walkin’ bad idea with a nasty quickdraw. Made plenty of bloody mistakes, got us all in heaps of trouble. Was never cruel, though. Mean, sure. And creative in his punishments, which is an unfortunate flaw to find in the one whose responsible for you.” He chuckles, pausing to think. Charles leans back to watch him as he talks, silent and intent as he listens. His lips are curled up, crooked and slight. Arthur considers kissing him, contemplates it long enough that the moment passes. He slides a finger into Charles’ belt loop instead, and wonders how anything is supposed to get done when the both of them think the other is drawing the lines.

“And now?” Charles prompts him, after a moment of silence. Arthur chuckles without humor, feels his face tightens into an expression that’s surely the cause of most of his worry lines these days. 

“Now, I don’t know who he is no more. Dutch has admitted to things he would’ve never cottoned to a few years ago, and I ain’t even want to guess the things he’s hiding from us. From me. I’m afraid of what he’s capable of, maybe just afraid of him in general. He’s gonna get these folk killed faster than he realizes. 

“Charles, I…” Arthur sighs as he trails off, looking out around the camp. At the vacant spots where once Hosea had slept, Lenny and Sean. Karen sleeping off her drunken stupor, Mary-Beth surrounded by the little stacks of books she escapes into. Everyone at rest, but no one at ease. “I can’t save these people from Dutch, not if we all tied up in each other like this. This gang ain’t safe for anyone, not anymore. If them Pinkertons find us at a bad time, who else will we lose? Tilly, Jack, Susan? You?”

“I know.” Charles slides a hand up Arthur’s arm, hand gentle and calming. It’s path ends when his hand is warm against Arthur’s neck. Fingers cup his nape, firm points of pressure against his pulse. “Something has to be done, but we can’t terrify people in the process. Can’t risk raising Dutch’s temper, either.” Charles pauses, thinks for a moment. He lets out a breath, slow and deliberate as he stares down at Arthur with that placid look he always seems to have when deeply considering something. Arthur feels spread open somehow, like he bears some indelible truth that only Charles can see.

He’s quiet for a while, Arthur beginning to shift under the weight of his observance. Charles notices the fidgeting and smiles, lines pressing into place under his dark eyes and above the wide bridge of his nose. Arthur considers running a thumb across the little lines, deepened with age and expression. This time he follows through, and Charles makes a quiet sound, a sigh that Arthur repeats over in his mind. 

“Oh, Arthur.” Charles’ voice is hushed, low. He says Arthur’s name with such blatant, unmistakable warmth that Arthur sinks into it without thought. Presses his palm flat to Charles’ cheek and revels in the way he leans into the offered touch. “We will find a way to help them. All of them. I might have an idea.”

Arthur nods, feeling more sure of finding the right thing to do with Charles right beside him. Having Charles back is like returning to himself, righting himself. It is where he’s meant to be, at least for now - there is no doubt in him that Charles has given him a sense of balance, not only in his own mind but how he views the world. How he handles it. Losing Charles is something Arthur cannot imagine, even after so short a time.

“Did you think I was dead, when we was in Guarma?” There’s no way to ask it gently, and Arthur doesn’t bother much trying to find one. Just runs his hand over the shaved sides of Charles’ head, smooth and short, gorgeous and laden with silent grief. “I thought about it a whole lot, while we were stuck there. Thought about whether the Pinkerton’s had caught up with you, in the chase or sometime after. If they’d found the gang somehow.”

Charles hums thoughtfully. He’s not closed off, but there’s a sudden edge to him as if he’s calculating his next words and actions carefully. Arthur wishes he could’ve been there to ease whatever feeling that Charles is remembering, but the more he thinks of it the more he knows that the part of Charles that mourns is not the part that Arthur is meant to witness. If Charles wants to share that pain, he will do so, but the caution in him says clearly that such feelings are to stay silent for now. 

“While you were gone, I did some reconnaissance for Eagle Flies and Rains Fall - I’ve been working with them often over the past month. I was in Saint Denis for long enough to rest and grab a drink. Bought a newspaper from that noisy kid across the street, more to look like I was busy than to actually read.” Charles pauses, thinks. Arthur wonders if this man has done a single thing in his life that wasn’t carefully thought out. He’s twenty-eight, nearly a decade younger than Arthur, and has a measured grace to him that Arthur has never really been able to master. It’s so well-tuned that Arthur thinks he’s always had it, a factor of both nature and nurture that only solidified with age and hardship. 

“There was this article,” Charles continues, drawing back Arthur’s attention. “Talked about a cargo ship lugging coal that hit a rough storm. There were a few survivors, but…” He sighs, shakes his head. Do people keep grieving, even if the one lost comes back from the dead? It’s not a process easily interrupted, Arthur knows that intimately. “I didn’t think you were dead Arthur, I _knew_ it. Six people survived the initial shipwreck, and half of them died while being cared for. From wounds, hypothermia. Even if you’d survived the wreck, there was nowhere for you to go. I knew you were dead, and I mourned you.”

He looks at Arthur with a rare intensity, bright and burning like even just the thought of Arthur’s death has relit a fuse. It saddens Arthur, yes, but it thrills him even more so. Knowing that he’s wanted like this, knowing that Charles felt something so vivid and anchored in him that it’s loss left him reeling. Arthur isn’t glad to hurt Charles - would’ve done anything to just let the man know he was alive, at least - but this pain has knotted them together, entangled them so completely that Arthur can clearly see there is no return from this. 

Arthur’s loyalties have shifted, slowly but surely. He has never been disloyal to Dutch, never strayed from that path. With time, the path that follows Dutch has become overgrown. Lost beneath reaching foliage that obscure the way forward, so that all there is to follow is the sound of Dutch’s voice. WIth time, what has become clear is that Dutch allows the overgrowth so that no one can see what’s happening in front of them. No one who follows him can see far enough ahead to know when Dutch is stumbling, to know when the path drops off into a cliff. 

He will lead every last one of them off the edge, if they don’t find their own way to go. The cliff grows nearer every day. 

Arthur looks at Charles. Sees that drawn brow, the loose locks of hair that fall from his braid. The laugh lines, the worry lines, so much shallower than Arthur’s own. The way he watches Arthur says, _I will follow you anywhere, and if you must be led then I will shepherd you kindly_.

When he looks at Charles, he sees a clear path. There are no cliff edges in sight.

“I’m back,” Arthur says, “And I ain’t goin’ nowhere this time. Dutch was a good man, when I needed him. Treated me well. But I don’t need him no more.”

“What do you need then, Arthur?”

“Just you, I s’pose. Can’t imagine needin’ more than that."


	8. divergence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A fork in the path, where both futures are obscured and unsure.

Since the beginning of the brutal end of the Braithwaites, Arthur has been frozen over. He thinks the chill started after Blackwater, the first expression of reckless greed from Dutch. The loss of Jenny and the Callander boys, the loss of his and Hosea’s fine lead. The way no one would talk about what Dutch actually did to the poor girl on the boat, all vague insinuations of killing her in a bad way but no concrete facts.

He didn’t notice his cold demeanor as they trekked through Colter, finding O’Driscolls and Sadie. Not in Horseshoe Overlook, with things returning to normalcy and him staying distant and thoughtless. It wasn’t until he watched a wailing Catherine stumble into the Braithwaite Manor and let the flames consume her like the corpses of her kin that he realized something had gone terribly wrong inside of him, and he did not know how to right himself. Dutch spun him like a top and tripped him while he tried to catch his balance, and each time offered out a hand to help like it would ingratiate Arthur to him.

Arthur watched as Dutch took advantage of him and everyone else that offered their loyalty, watched their kind leader serve them rotten food on pretty platters and expected them to eat it and be grateful all the while. Dutch’s words meant less every day that went by, sounding more hollow and repetitive with each disaster of a job. With each life lost. Needless death, borne of accident or negligence, will always tear apart a group. For the Van der Linde gang, that needless death came from all directions. 

When Eagle Flies rides in with other young men from his tribe, calling for blood, Arthur knows that there is no good ending to this story. He sees that cunning light in Dutch’s eyes, sees the fear in Charles’. He knows that Dutch has riled up Eagle Flies with those pretty words he’s so good at serving, and Eagle Flies hasn’t been around Dutch long enough to know that these days he doesn’t help anyone if he doesn’t get something out of it himself. 

Dutch needs either a scapegoat or a martyr, and Arthur watches him set his sights on the chief’s son. Desperate for change, and tired of waiting on his father’s attempts at peace. Tired of watching his people die, cornered and picked off like animals. Those who have seen only the plague of war want peace; those who have seen only the slow building of peace want war. Eagle Flies is young and easily led, and Dutch loves to lead.

So, Dutch leads Eagle Flies to the cliff’s edge, just like the rest of them.

Bringing the battle to the army is a fool’s effort, but Charles and Arthur both go along to help. The fight is ugly, far too many deaths and not enough to be gained. Arthur saves Paytah from the man he’s grappling with, too close to losing for comfort. Maybe that makes it worth it; maybe that will mean something, when they finally count their dead. Arthur still doubts it.

Going along with Dutch to find the bonds almost gives him a moment of hope. The way Dutch talks about the state bonds to be found in the factory’s office sounds genuine, more like the Dutch that Arthur has always known than the recent replacement. Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but Arthur nearly believes for a moment when Dutch says, _we’re almost free_. 

Then, the army’s backup arrives. Arthur is knocked down when one of the pipes is burst, sending a spray of hot steam into his face and burning like hell. A man uses the moment of surprise to pin him down, gets a knife nearly to his throat. Arthur is still disoriented and barely able to hold the man back.

Then, Arthur can see Dutch through the steam. He’s standing still, watching, gun still in it’s holster. He can’t quite make eye contact through the haze of heat and fear, but he knows when Dutch turns around slow and casual, and walks out the factory door like the place is empty behind him. 

It’s Eagle Flies who saves him, at the cost of his own life. He doesn’t die immediately, but Arthur sees the hole in his gut and knows that it’s only a matter of time. 

“You damned fool,” Arthur grunts as shrugs off his overshirt before he hauls Eagle Flies up off the floor, taking his weight. 

“You’ve saved my life many times. This is how it should be.” Eagle Flies gasps out the words, his free hand fluttering about his wound as he fights the instinct to touch it. There’s no staunching the bleeding, but Arthur still takes a moment to wrap the shirt tight around his middle. 

“Tell me that again when you’re lookin’ at your own guts on the floor.” Eagle Flies laughs, then groans in pain. Arthur doesn’t think about the other times he’s seen men take a shotgun to their soft middles, doesn’t think about their deaths. He just pats Eagle Flies’ shoulder and hopes that his gods have more in store for him than a grisly end saving an old man who didn’t deserve the effort.

The door cracks open, a shadow in the slim gap, and hardly a moment passes before it swings open completely and Charles rushes to them. He takes Eagle Flies’ other arm, helps Arthur carry him out and to their horses. 

“Dutch left in a hurry,” Charles says grimly, his face guarded but clearly furious. There’s more to be said, but for the moment they just focus on getting Eagle Flies back to Wapiti. Back to his father.

Paytah and the remaining Native men are there with them, a few riding ahead to send warning that they return with wounded. Arthur knows that there’s nothing to be done for Eagle flies - can see that Charles knows too, still looking angry and afraid. Neither of them say a word about it, knowing the men need the hope. Knowing that trying to help is the only thing that the two of them can do to ease their own fears.

They move fast enough that Eagle Flies still breathes when they reach the reservation. His eyes flit above, and he doesn’t try to speak. They move him into Rains Fall’s tent, quick as they can be without jostling his gaping stomach. 

Eagle Flies dies with his hand in his father’s, breathing raggedly and full of buckshot. Rains Fall does not wail as his son’s breath tapers out, as his hand grows cold. He sings his grief, throaty and different from anything Arthur’s ever heard, yet an unmistakable dirge. 

Rains Fall does not break his song for a moment, but he looks at Arthur and Charles in turn. A clear thank you, and a clearer leave me. They exit the tent in silence, to find the tribe waiting outside. 

“They heard Rains Fall,” Charles explains quietly, as they leave the tribe to mourn their own. The men who fought argue quietly amongst themselves about how to collect the rest of their dead. Arthur doesn’t envy them. “They’ll do what they must to take care of their dead. They’ll have to move, and soon.”

When they reach the horses, Arthur runs his fingers over the blood left on his saddle, on Adelaide’s coat. Charles puts a hand on his shoulder, turning Arthur towards him.

“Arthur, I need to know what happened in the factory.” Charles’ face is drawn and closed, his voice serious. 

Arthur sighs, shrugs. “I don’t entirely know, really. Dutch and I, we got those state bonds from the office. A good deal of money, apparently. Dutch seemed pleased. When we was leavin’, a whole group of men came in. I thought we’d got’em all, but…” Arthur feels his brow furrow as he trails off, frustrated at his inability to believe what he knows. What he saw clear as day. “Dutch left me for dead, Charles. I - he saw me go down, saw some bastard tryna slit my throat, and he hesitated. And then he left. He had plenty of time to do something, and he just - he just didn’t.”

Charles’ face darkens further as Arthur speaks, his hand tight on Arthur’s shoulder. It aches, but it grounds Arthur exactly how he needs. “Arthur,” he says, and his voice is tight and stern. It makes Arthur stand straight, focus in on Charles. “When Dutch came out of the factory, he told everyone that you were dead. That he’d seen you go down, saw the man kill you before he could do anything.” 

The cold in him, present for so long, shatters as suddenly as he’d noticed it. Dutch had abandoned him, and in doing so has lost any final threads of loyalty leftover after the past year of growing disaster. Arthur doesn’t doubt Charles’ word for even a moment, knows that he has no reason to want to mislead or lie to Arthur. 

Arthur knows now what Dutch cares about, and what he’s willing to do. He knows, too, what he himself is willing to do in turn.

“We can’t get everyone out slow and steady, now,” he says, and Charles nods. “This has to happen now.”

“You’re right,” Charles sighs, giving Arthur’s shoulder a final squeeze before his hand drops. “I don’t like it, but it’s true. We’ll have to be on the defensive, if we want our people to actually make it out of this.”

“Alright.” Arthur mounts his horse, solemn but still pleased at the way Charles says _our people_. Uses the thought as a balm to his anger, to calm him and give him a clear head. Charles mounts Taima and they head down the trail, Rains Fall’s mournful voice following them into the night. “I’ll remember that. You focus on getting everyone together and out of the way, subtle as you can manage. I’ll deal with Dutch.”

“And Micah,” Charles adds gruffly, and Arthur just laughs.

“Yes, and Micah.” 

“Arthur?”

“Hm?”

“I love you.”

They look at each other, lit only by a waxing moon. Charles is a mess, relatively unharmed but bloodied from the battle. He wears a brown vest, a touch too large, undone over his ruined white shirt. His beaded necklace glints where its exposed at his unbuttoned collar, braid undone so that his hair falls around him, wavy and tangled. His wide features are heavy with worry and anticipation, unsure of what is to come. Arthur has seen those features still as pond waters and wild as waves on the ocean, and every step between. He’s held this man in his arms, kissed him, adored him. Charles’ influence on his person has brought to light the man that Arthur has always dreamed of being, the man he’s feared he could never manage to become. 

If anyone has earned Arthur’s loyalty, it’s Charles Smith. 

“And I love you,” Arthur says with a smile, earning in return a bright grin from Charles. “This is going to work, Charles. We’re gonna do this right.”

“I know it, Arthur. If anyone can do it, you will.”

“We will.”

Charles chuckles as he’s corrected, looking forward to the trail ahead of them. They’ll make camp, and sleep just long enough that they can reach Beaver Hollow before midday. 

A fork in the path, where both futures are obscured and unsure. Tomorrow decides their fate, every last one of the Van der Linde gang. If Arthur knows a single thing for sure, it’s that he will end tomorrow at Charles’ side.

_I’m coming, Dutch. Don’t get too comfortable, thinkin’ you’ve won._

\--

They reach Beaver Hollow mid-morning, sun filtering in dappled patches through the trees. Autumn is coming on strong, the leaves beginning to turn bright yellows and oranges. 

The camp is silent, other than near Dutch’s tent where some of the men are speaking in harsh tones to each other. People are out doing chores and sitting around, but they hardly look at each other, let alone converse. Charles, as the stealthier one of him and Arthur, eases himself towards the camp. He catches the attention of whomever he can that they know will be on their side - Tilly, John or Abigail, Sadie. Leads them just far enough outside of camp to explain the situation, that Arthur isn’t dead and is about to confront Dutch. To get out of range before things go to hell. He gives each of them ten dollars, not much but enough for some food and supplies, and tells them that they’re to stock up on whatever necessities they can get and to head to Reed Cottage north of Annesburg. Charles and Arthur will be there as soon as they can, he says, and we will figure out what to do.

Predictably, Sadie and John insist on being there when Arthur shows his face. They get a good deal of folk out of the way, completely unnoticed to due to the already deafening silence that hangs over the camp. Mary-Beth and Tilly sneak away, while Karen is drunk enough that they’ll just have to keep an eye on her when they’re ready to get things started. Abigail leaves with Jack on her hip, giving John a hard look before disappearing into the surrounding woods. Uncle is happy to get out of dodge, and is so noisy about it that he almost ruins the whole thing.

Karen, Molly, Pearson, and Susan are the only folk left that aren’t Dutch’s gunhands. They either couldn’t be reached secretly, or they were enough of a risk that they couldn’t be forewarned - Charles and Arthur will just need to be cautious, and hope that they’re smart enough to run when things go poorly. And they will go poorly, Arthur knows that for a fact. Can’t leave a man for dead without some hard feelings getting in the way of the reunion.

When Charles comes back to tell him that everyone he could reach has gone, it’s time. They stand in the woods, just staring at each other for a long moment. Charles is the one who pulls him into a kiss, gentle and slow despite the way he can feel both of their hearts racing. They don’t speak when they break apart. They just nod, and slip away to take their positions.

Arthur heads into the caves. He goes through the exit, down the ladder and through the emptied cavern so he can get into the middle of the camp without being spotted. Charles flanks and sneaks in from the road-side of camp, while John and Sadie hold their position in camp and make sure that the missing gang members aren’t noticed.

It’s a gamble, this situation. Arthur doesn’t know what will happen - he and Charles had tried to plan the actual confrontation, but there are too many variables, too many moving parts. Arthur doesn’t know how far Dutch is willing to go, when things come to a head. Will Dutch shoot him, straight out? Will he try to cover his tracks, to pretend it was all a terrible misunderstanding? 

Will Arthur die here, bleed out into the soil that housed him just days before? The man who saved his life could kill him here and now, and Arthur has no clue whether Dutch will mourn him or breathe a sigh of relief.

When Arthur steps out of the cavern, he’s not noticed at first. Bill and Javier are faced away from him as they talk, and he can see a sliver of Micah’s form in Dutch’s tent. He sees Charles approach from the other side, unarmed but clearly ready for a fight. 

“Dutch? Can you come out here, so I can speak with you?” Arthur swallows a laugh as his call startles Javier and Bill, who both stare in shock. 

“Arthur, you’re alive.” It’s Javier who breathes out the words, nearly cracking a grin as he steps forward. He halts quickly, realizing that something is wrong as he processes Arthur’s entrance to the camp. Susan rushes over to them, eyes wide as she takes him in.

“Back from the dead yet again, Mister Morgan,” she says, but it’s nervous in tone. She stays a few paces back, and he nods at her - she senses trouble, and good thing she does. Dutch is stepping slowly out of his tent, Micah right at his heel. Arthur notices Charles putting a finger to his mouth when Pearson notices him, as Charles is exposed but still unseen by Dutch’s remaining men. 

“Arthur.” Dutch says his name like he always does, familiar and grating in the moment. “My son. You’re alive.”

“Mhm, that I am.” Arthur sniffs, looks around. Karen is still in her tent, seemingly passed out. Molly is approaching slowly, looking shell-shocked and confused. Pearson hasn’t moved from his spot, and is looking at the lot of them with a calculating gaze. He and Susan are the only ones not involved who’ve figured out that something is very wrong. “No thanks to you, of course. Pretty slick move you pulled, there.”

“Shut that mouth of yours, Morgan,” Micah snaps, stepping forward. Dutch stops him with a hand on his chest, and Arthur laughs.

“Yeah, alright, you yippy little guard dog,” Arthur mocks, knowing it’s foolish but unable to help rising to the bait. He never has been good at leave Micah alone. Micah goes red in the face, mouth opening to retort when Dutch smacks his hand against Micah’s chest in warning.

“Quit it, both of you,” Dutch says, sounding so sure that his orders are law. As if Arthur would follow him still, after everything. “Arthur, how did you survive? I saw - “

As he’s speaking, Dutch turns to look at what he surely thinks is the crowd of onlookers. The gang is nosy and far too caught up in each others’ business - if something is happening in the middle of camp, there’s always a ring of people watching. When he turns and sees hardly a soul, Dutch’s voice falters.

Arthur watches the dawning realization on his face. He watches the same conclusions hit Javier and Micah. Watches Susan back up, already clued in and afraid for what might follow. Bill and Molly are both still confused, but they look angry all the same, pent up by the tension and ready to act.

“You,” Dutch snarls, and he stalks towards Arthur. A gun cocks, and though Arthur is expecting to see John or Sadie, he instead sees them all staring in surprise at a shotgun-wielding Susan Grimshaw. 

Her face is drawn with unbridled fury, as she points the cocked gun at Dutch. She’s been backing towards one of the tents, Arthur sees, and snagged someone’s splayed equipment. She has a bandolier hanging over her shoulder, ready to defend herself. Arthur remembers vividly that he adores this woman, and also that she has always been far braver than any of them give her credit for. 

Dutch stops in his tracks, snapping up his slack jaw and whipping his head back and forth between Arthur and Susan. He lands on Arthur, finally, furious as he loses control of the situation. “You turned my people against me, Arthur! Have I not been a father to you, a friend? Twenty years, and you turn on me!”

“Twenty years, and you watch a man try to kill me?” Arthur scoffs. “You let it happen, Dutch! You left me there, and you didn’t even try to save my goddamn life.”

“You told us you watched him be killed,” Susan says, low with anger. “Dutch, you filthy fucking - “

A shot rings out, loud and sudden. Susan gasps, then stumbles. Her stomach blooms red as the slanted shot opens her abdomen, the richly-colored fabric of her dress tearing away and turning black with blood as her entrails are exposed to the cool air. She falls to the ground before her stomach can spill, choking on the blood that bubbles up her throat. Micah’s own shotgun is smoking, just a few feet away from her. 

Things are different, after that.

It’s a standoff now, everyone ready for the worst as the smell of gunsmoke fills the air. John and Sadie are up and armed, a bit further away from the center of the conflict. Charles stepped back into the shadows, all the attention on the opposite side of camp meaning they still have an element of surprise. Pearson ran off as Susan crumbled to the ground, one less innocent at risk. Molly still stands with her hands covering her mouth, silent tears rolling at she stares at Susan’s prone body. Arthur can’t see if she’s still hanging on, but Arthur saw exactly how far her stomach had opened, due to the angle of Micah’s shot. She wouldn’t be alive much longer.

At least they hadn’t struggled, choking on their own blood in the dust. Arthur feels sick and strange, detached from reality as he realizes that this is going to end in more death than they’d anticipated. 

Arthur and Dutch both dual-wield their pistols, mirror images of each other. Dutch is aiming at Arthur and, unexpectedly, at Micah. Maybe it’s just for show, maybe not - but Dutch looks desperate and unsure, face flushed and covered in a sheen of sweat. Arthur and Micah, who has pulled out a pistol in his other hand, are pointed at each other and Dutch, the trio forming a wide triangle that the others watch warily. 

Charles has placed himself perfectly behind Micah so that Arthur can meet his eyes without arousing suspicion. He looks terrified, but sure of himself as he makes small gestures with his hand. Charles will get Micah, and Arthur will get Dutch. Charles gestures to his own arm, then to Dutch - a disarming shot. Arthur is filled with relief, unconvinced of his ability to kill one of the men who raised him. 

“Dutch, he’s the traitor,” Micah hisses, never taking his eyes off Arthur. “He’s the rat, too, I’d wager. You don’t have to point that thing at me, you know I’m on your side.” 

While Micah runs his mouth, Arthur watches Charles gesture to John and Sadie. Directs them towards Bill and Javier, who are armed but not quite aimed anywhere particular. Steadying himself, Arthur breathes slow and waits for Charles’ signal. 

“Micah, Miss Grimshaw is all bark and you know it.” Dutch doesn’t acknowledge the comment about being the rat, which Arthur notes with a strange amount of hurt. That Dutch would trust Micah over him is already a blow to his pride, but believing Arthur capable of risking everything they’ve built together is just a joke.

Dutch doesn’t care to know him. Doesn’t care about anything but himself. The only good thing about it is that it makes the next part easier. 

Charles aims his bow, careful and slow, and nods. Arthur slowly starts to lower his guns, drawing attention to himself and then relaxing their guard. 

Micah splays his arms out, prematurely assuming Arthur is surrendering. “Oh, Morgan,” he starts with a grin, and then stops as an arrowhead slides neatly through his neck. 

The world explodes into motion. 

As Micah gasps wetly, a crude imitation of Susan just moments ago, Dutch shifts his gaze away from Arthur. In that moment he fires two quick shots, knowing he can spare the time for a second shot from every daring quickdraw wager, every time that Arthur bested the older man with his quick fingers and deadly precision. One shot hits Dutch’s wrist, sending his arm back and one pistol flying as he hollers in pain. It hits the ground and skids as Molly shrieks out a protest. Arthur’s second shot fires into Dutch’s shoulder, sending Dutch to the ground. Dutch tries to fire with his remaining pistol just a moment too late, and the shot goes wide. It grazes Arthur’s shoulder, painful but ignorable. 

Molly screams, her body thudding to the ground. Arthur’s breath catches, but she keeps groaning in pain, meaning she probably wasn’t shot anywhere vital.

John and Sadie, in the same span of time, used the distracted to gain some ground. Close enough now to be a threat, Bill and Javier try to back up a few paces, guns raising slowly.

“Don’t bother,” Charles says from behind them, now wielding a rifle aimed in their direction. Bill jumps in surprise, and Javier’s eyes widen for a moment before he just cracks a snide smile and drops his gun. Bill does the same after a moment, looking at the three who surround them in turn. 

“You really got us, huh, _compadres_?” Javier shakes his head, looking over at Dutch. “Maybe you really were the rat, Arthur.”

Arthur snorts, his gun still trained on a wide-eyed Dutch. “My money’s still on Micah, though I ain’t quite sure that he can confirm that for us anymore. Even if he wanted to.”

“Arthur,” Dutch pleads, propped up on one elbow and cradling his injured wrist close to his chest. “Put Micah out of his misery, if he can’t be saved. You ain’t that cruel, not even you.”

“Not even - _not even me_?” Arthur stares at Dutch, incredulous. “Yeah, alright. You go on and believe that Dutch, see how far it gets you. You been cruel for a long time now, and I tried to warn you of it. You’se the one who didn’t wanna hear a word of that shit.”

With a gesture, John moves over to cover Dutch. Sadie steps around Javier and Bill to stand with the woods at her back, making sure they don’t run off. Charles, with a small nod to Sadie, runs to Molly to check on her. 

They’re a well-oiled machine, even more so without Dutch manning the controls. 

Arthur steps over to Micah, kneeling down beside him. Blood has seeped up his throat and dripped over the edge of his open mouth, soaked into his facial hair. His head is tilted to the side, so it hasn’t pooled quite yet, and Micah is still wheezing out shallow breaths that gurgle on the exhale. Wide, bloodshot eyes pass over Arthur unseeingly. 

“You tore my family apart,” Arthur says quietly, and though Micah doesn’t answer his eyes stop roving, and his arm twitches once, twice. Arthur doesn’t want to know how clearly Micah is capable of thinking, and doesn’t have the time to consider it. “You gonna rot, Micah Bell. Heaven or hell aside, you sure as hell gonna rot.”

Arthur meets Micah’s eyes as he stands and cocks his pistol, firing it into Micah’s skull. It’s enough to quell the rage, enough to sate whatever need for vengeance Arthur may foster in the days to come. An act of both cruelty and mercy, followed by complete silence. 

Now, Dutch. 

Arthur walks back to Dutch, and they share a nod. There’s no thanking, not for anything as gruesome as this, but there’s a mutual respect to be honored. John and Arthur look at each other, and John sighs.

“This didn’t have to happen like this, Dutch,” John says. Arthur kicks away the dropped pistol, allowing John to lower the gun he has trained on Dutch. “If you’d just listened to us, we could’ve figured this shit out together. Always thought we were a family, y’know?”

“We were - we are a family, John. Did I not raise you boys? Teach you everything you know?”

“Oh, cut the bullshit, Dutch!” Arthur gestures down at him, then to the rest of the camp. “You’re sitting in your own shit now, you may as well admit it. I didn’t turn our folk against you, they was scared of you, of the things you’re willing to put them through. You left John and me both for dead once, and we known you the longest out of any of us left. What would you be willing to do to them?”

“I wanted what was best for us!” Dutch shouts, breathing heavy as he stares up at the pair of them. “I was so close to saving us, so close! You think I ever had anything else in mind?”

“God, you’re pitiful, ain’t you?” John sneers, shakes his head like he can’t even believe that this is Dutch. He meets Arthur’s eyes, surely finding the same feeling in his brother. “The hell do we even do with him?”

“Ah, shit,” Arthur huffs, shrugging. “I reckon we let him run, lick his wounds. Dutch, listen.” Arthur crouches down beside him, Dutch staring at him in disbelief. “You ain’t have to stay friendly after this, but… You won’t come after us, will you?” He reaches out and puts a hand on Dutch’s good shoulder, gentle in the wake of violence. “I’m askin’ this of you, I really am. As your son, as a man whose followed you all his life. Let us go, Dutch.” 

There’s a long moment, silent save for their heavy breaths and Charles’ quiet murmuring to Molly. Arthur watches as Dutch’s veneer shatters, as Dutch slumps and gives in after so many long months of keeping up the facade. 

“Alright, Arthur. Alright.”

“You mean that?” Arthur searches his eyes, his face, desperate for some confirmation that there will be no hunting. No revenge.

“This, all of this, ends here. I mean it, Arthur, I - “ Dutch chuckles, weakly and without humour. “I’m tired, son. I’m real tired.”

“Then retire, old man.” Arthur nods at Dutch, gives his shoulder a pat and drops his arm. “Do something productive with the time you got left. Not like you’re gonna be doin’ much shooting with that hand of yours.”

Dutch snorts, and then lets out a laugh. Hearty and bit hysterical. “Yes, I do suppose that’s the case. You’re as good a shot as ever, Arthur.” He sighs, looking at John and Arthur in turn. “I assume you have the rest of the folk holed up somewhere, ready to find a new home?”

Arthur grunts, standing up straight with a bit of effort. Charles whistles for their horses, now that they’re sure the fight is over. “Yeah, somethin’ like that.”

John chuckles, heading over to Bill and Javier. Before the fight, they’d decided that those who’d been loyal to Dutch would be offered the same respite as the rest of the folk they’d led away, if they wished it. It was only fair - Arthur was just as guilty of going along with Dutch’s madness, and it’s easy to understand why they wouldn’t go against his orders. From the look of it, both of them turn down the offer. John and Sadie herd Bill, Javier, and Dutch all off in different directions. They’ll make their own futures, wherever they choose. The only ones who bore enough anger to follow what’s left of the gang were Micah and Dutch, both of whom were dealt with.

Arthur actually believes Dutch, for the first time in a long while. He thinks that Dutch is just relieved for an out from the burgeoning responsibility of keeping the gang safe in the aftermath of his bad decisions. Knowing that John and Sadie can handle the rest, Arthur heads over to Charles and Molly, where they’re still on the ground.

The bullet went through her thigh, unpleasant but not deadly. “It didn’t seem to strike the bone at all, and it went completely through,” Charles explains to him quietly. Molly is breathing steadily, her eyes scrunched shut. “It will hurt for a long while, but she’ll be fine. She doesn’t want to come along with us - she wants to go to Saint Denis.”

“Alright,” Arthur says just as soft, nodding. “We can get you there. I’m real glad you’re alright, Miss O’Shea.” 

“Thank you, Arthur,” she says, her voice clipped but genuine. “I’m quite ready to live a life tad less threatening to my wellbeing.” Her eyes crack open just enough that she can glance over at Susan’s body, cooling in the dirt not too far away from them. “What’ll you do with her?”

“We’ll bury her,” Charles says with a furrow in his brow. He lifts Molly into his arms, careful with her hastily bandaged leg. “Micah too, though I’m not sure he quite deserves it.”

Molly winces as she’s carried, shaking her head with a grimace. “We all deserve it, when we’re dead. No chance to fix your messes if you been knocked off.”

Arthur lets out a startled laugh, moving to stand alongside them. “That is surprisingly poignant for you, Miss O’Shea.”

“Well, hearing the word _poignant_ outta you is a shock as well, Mister Morgan.” Molly sniffs, indignant. Charles snorts, hiding his smile as he brings Molly towards Taima. 

“Fair enough,” Arthur chuckles. “Fair enough.”

“Molly needs real care for this wound,” Charles says as they reach the horses, pausing. “And Karen’s run off, like Pearson. I can’t stay to help you dig the graves.”

“I got it,” Sadie calls, returning from the woods alongside John. “I can take Molly into Saint Denis, if that’s alright with the lady. I’ll keep an eye out for Karen, too - drunk as she was, she ain’t gone very far.” 

Molly and Sadie share a smirk, relatively good-natured and absolutely terrifying. Arthur fears a day that the two of them learn to be in the same room without threatening each other’s health; they’d be a force to be reckoned with. For the moment, they seemed to be fueled only by a mutual need to be far away from Beaver Hollow. 

Sadie whistles her horse over, and Charles helps Molly up as easily as can be managed. “I’m gonna keep an eye on that lot for a few days, make sure that everyone is doin’ as they was told.”

“Good plan.” Charles nods, taking each of the women’s hands in turn and giving them a firm squeeze. “You two be careful out there. Best of luck to you, Molly. I hope this isn’t the last we ever see of you.”

“You, too, Charles. Keep that man of yours safe, yeah?” Molly sends Arthur a wicked little grin, leaving him scoffing as he looks away, doing a poor job of hiding the heat that rises to his face. Charles chuckles, patting her knee. 

Sadie is laughing too, always the first to endorse teasing Arthur. “Where will I find you two, in a few weeks’ time?”

Charles and Arthur share a look, quick but clear in its communication. “We aren’t quite sure yet, but we’ll leave a letter at Reed for you once we know,” Charles says, and Sadie nods. 

“Don’t get dead, boys. I’ll see you in a while.”

“Good huntin’, Sadie!” Arthur calls as she trots away with Molly, her hand waving as they head out towards the main road. 

John is stood by Micah’s body, arms crossed and expression unreadable. Arthur comes up beside him, putting an arm around his shoulders.

“You alright, John?” His voice is quiet, just for the two of them. It doesn’t make much difference, as Charles is finding the shovels in order to give them a moment alone. It still feels right though, to narrow down the word to just the space in front of them, soft and only their own. It reminds him of being young, Arthur hardly into his twenties and John just beginning his teens, when they finally started to get along. 

“Yeah, I’m fine, you big ol’ lug.” John nudges Arthur with an elbow, hardly any force behind it. Arthur just huffs out a laugh. “I just can’t believe it. Dutch and Hosea, both gone.”

“I can’t either,” Arthur sighs. “But they raised us ready for this, and it was always a possibility. You got a family to take care of now, Marston. It’s about time you made yourself an honest livin’.”

“S’pose you’re right.” John and Arthur don’t speak for a while, thinking their own thoughts and sharing only the comfort of their contact. It will take both of them a long while to process the past few months, to chew it all up to the point that it’s digestible. Their entire world has shifted on its axis, Arthur’s especially. All they need to be in that moment is safe, and not alone. “Do you need help digging these graves?”

“Eh, you go on and find that wife of yours. No point in keeping her waiting any longer’n you already have.” Arthur smirks, catching Charles’ eye as he approaches with shovels in hand.

John groans, rolling his eyes and shrugging Arthur’s arm off his shoulders. “Whatever, Morgan. Someday you’re gonna have to forgive me for all that mess, and you know it.”

“I don’t have to do shit, Johnny Boy. Now go be domestic, would you?”

John shakes his head, whistling loud and sharp for his horse. “Don’t wait too long to get back to us,” he says, leveling a knowing look at both Charles and Arthur. Charles just averts his eyes, but Arthur laughs, patting John hard enough to hurt on his knee. 

“We’ll be prompt, Marston, never fear.”

“Yeah, I’ve heard that before.” John laughs, pulling himself up onto his horse when she finally trots over, giving John a pleased chuff. “Y’all sure you’re alright?”

“You go on and get back to your family,” Arthur insists, nudging him along. “We’re fine here.”

“Be safe then, boys.”

“Thank you, John.” Charles inclines his head, and waves to John as he gallops away to the south. It’s the last one of them to head into their futures other than Arthur and Charles, and though Arthur is ready to be done with Beaver Hollow and all it’s misery, it’s not quite time yet.

The past still needs to be buried, and its graves have yet to be dug. 

\--

The lot of them stay in Reed Cottage for about a week before going their separate ways.

It turns out that Abigail knew where Dutch’s money chest had been hidden, tucked away into a corner of the caverns at Beaver Hollow. There’s a neat forty-thousand in there, enough for all of them to walk away from the aftermath of the Van der Linde gang without fear. Enough to build a life in the wake of disaster.

John and Abigail buy a plot of land in the Heartlands, hoping to give Jack a real home to grow up in. The land itself has nothing more than dry dirt and a sun-warped little shack, but Abigail is nothing if not stubborn and John is nothing if not easily led. Arthur and Charles stay there with them for a few months, helping to haul the materials necessary to build a fine ranch house and a barn. Charles is a great boon when it comes to nurturing the soil for farming, and Arthur is always happy to learn anything he doesn’t already know. It’s a home, at long last; cozy and all their own, with plenty of rooms for when anyone comes around to visit.

Their home is a place of safety for the ex-gang members, door always open as long as you never led trouble over the threshold. Of all the people John would have guessed, Sadie is their most frequent visitor by far. Excepting Uncle, of course, their live-in source of entertainment and annoyance. Sadie Adler becomes an avid bounty hunter over the years, an infamous duelist in her own right, and well-known for her temper. Something of a nomad due to the drifting nature of her career, she always comes to the house bearing interesting news or word from their friends. They stay involved and invested, and always happy to share the time they have. _Life’s for sharing_ , Abigail said to Arthur once with that stubborn quirk in her mouth and brow. It was a few months after John had disappeared, when they’d all realized that he had really run off. Abigail was one of the very few who refused to believe John had left for good. _Keeping a good life bottled up for yourself is just a quick way to smother all that happiness_. 

Tilly and Mary-Beth end up finding good company in Charlotte Balfour, a friend of Arthur’s who was living alone in the mountains. It’s Mary-Beth’s idea originally, going north to wander so that she and Tilly can have a break from working in the city. Arthur sees a familiar fork in the path and remembers Charlotte’s hospitality, knows that she’d be happy to oblige them. Turns out, they get on so well that Arthur can hardly get a word in between the three of them. Charlotte only has to insinuate that she’s getting a little lonely in the mountains by herself for Tilly and Mary-Beth to make enthusiastic offers to liven the place up a bit.

They fix up the old shack into a writing studio for Mary-Beth, and the spare room for her and Tilly to stay in. They build and tend to the garden and care for the grounds, and Tilly proves to be a skilled hunter and archer. It’s not a traditional life, but it seems to work for them.

(During one of Arthur’s visits, he notices that things have been moved around. Mary-Beth has moved into the smaller building entirely, which has been extended a bit to make space for her bed and belongings. The shared bedroom is now a work space, with sewing and tanning materials squared away near a single spare bed. Charlotte’s bedroom is unrecognizable, her dresser and shelves replaced with larger pieces of furniture, most notably her new double bed. Tilly stands at the foot of it, folding one of Charlotte’s dresses, when Arthur sees it for the first time. 

“I’m sure Mary-Beth thought it real romantic, how this all ended up.”

Tilly laughs, bright and clear and so happy it could bring Arthur to his knees. There is no greater joy than this - finding oneself after a long winter away from who you are. “Oh, you know it. There was no shuttin’ her up, once we’d stopped trying to hide it. Weren’t never too good at hidin’ it, in any case.”

“No, Miss Tilly, neither was I.”)

The others are more scattered, harder to find any word as to their whereabouts. Molly is the easiest, easy to find but unhappy being reminded of her days in the Van der Linde gang. Sadie is the only one who sees her, coming by to do nothing more than make sure she’s alive and drop off a bit of the money they’re gradually doling out. All of them earned it, together - they all have a right to it. Molly gets married about a year after the gang dissolved, and her husband dies hardly a year after their wedding. After that, Molly just seems to close herself off. She never had any children by him, and in her years as a widow she never grows a garden, socializes in town, or even keeps a horse. From all that Sadie’s said, Arthur wonders if Molly eschewed all sense of feeling and just drifts about that empty old house of hers, tired and alone. He’s glad that, if nothing else, Sadie is there to remind her that there’s always the option of another life whether she takes it or not.

They never find Pearson, though there’s dubious word here and there of his appearance in smaller towns further west. Karen ends up finding Bill and Javier at a saloon in Armadillo, a few years later. Javier sets out on his own soon after, even visits the Marston home from time to time, but Karen and Bill travel together for a long time after that. They lose contact with all three of them relatively quickly, but it’s enough to know they were safe in the aftermath. That they might be seen again someday.

None of them go after Dutch. Arthur and Charles specifically avoid any news that sounds even vaguely like the former gang leader, happy to allow that part of the story to end in silence. Dutch can make his own fate, and Arthur is happy to never again have a hand in its instrumentation.

\--

In the years that follow, Arthur and Charles travel. They do so with a measured pace, experiencing the world from new vantage points and savoring the moments they’d been rushing through their entire lives. Nearly forty himself, Arthur finds that once he lets go of the urgency of the last twenty years, it’s impossible to pick back up. He’s no layabout, but he certainly takes well to a relaxed life. 

Charles is hardly thirty-two and still spry, vivacious in a way that Arthur feels can only be seen by a select few, invisible to the untrained eye. There’s a comfort that overtakes Charles as they adjust to their new life, and it brings a deep ease to Arthur to know that this man is able to find the life he wants at Arthur’s side. They do everything together, bound together so entirely that it never occurs to them to leave each other’s side. Short hunting trips and town visits, sure, but anything longer than a few days finds them packed up and together, in each others pockets.

Arthur is forty-five and beginning to bitch about his joints. Charles is thirty-seven and effortlessly deadpan as he takes the shit out of Arthur for being an old man. The pair of them lay eyes on the old house and know it’s perfect before they’ve said a word to each other.

It’s almost a cottage, with dark and sturdy wood foundation and the wrap-around porch. Little shuttered windows show that the place is clearly abandoned, moved out of and left behind long enough ago that there’s an inch of dust on every surface in the place. It’s near the Tempest Rim, so it’s far enough north that they’ll be unbothered. It’s also only a half-day ride to the Wapiti reservation, still good friends of Charles and Arthur. Three days will take you to Charlotte, Tilly, and Mary-Beth; another two days south will get you to the Marston house. It’s large enough that the two of them would have plenty of their own space, small enough that Arthur has a good excuse to casually bump himself into Charles every once in a while the way he likes to. 

They grow old there, in the way that people like them rarely get to. Arthur pushing fifty and Charles close behind, kept young in spirit by the fresh air and the physical strain of good living. It’s a kindness that either of them get a chance for this, Arthur thinks as he looks at their home, now familiar as the back of his hand. 

Charles is braiding his hair, once again grown out completely and beginning to gray in collected, gorgeous streaks of silver. There has never been a moment Arthur hasn’t wanted him with such adoration that he almost doesn’t know what to do with himself. As it is, Arthur steps into Charles space, tucks himself into Charles’ arms and earns himself a fond laugh. 

“How are you, nicimos?”

“Real good, sweetheart. Real good.”

Charles hums, kisses Arthur on the top of his head. His hand finds its way to Arthur’s jaw, tipping his head back far enough that Charles can kiss him. Slow and sweet-like, the way he always does. The way that melts Arthur, turns him to putty in the hands of the man that shaped him into someone worth being. It is an act of observance, taking the potential of those whom you love and helping them mold themselves into their greatest selves.

Above all else, that is love. 

“I love you, Arthur.”

“And I love you, Charles. Always.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is it! this is the end. i know i said one last chapter but it got really long (like 15k long) so i split it up for ease of reading. i cant believe that i actually finished a chaptered fic, especially one this long. you guys have been so awesome and so encouraging, and i just have to say thank you all so much. i was not expecting this to be the monster it is - if you can't tell from the first chapter, i originally planned to just make a sweet little 2-3 chapter thing to try out these characters. i just kind of..went off the rails. so here's the deal for the future
> 
> 1) as of 1/21/2020 i've finished editing this work! let me know if theres anything else you guys notice that i missed. thank you all so much for your time and patience, i adore you all
> 
> 2) i have multiple ideas for sequels, so this work will soon become a series! im already working on a few, as well as some completely separate works for charthur and some others, so if you liked this work i would love it if you subscribed or checked back in with me later! 
> 
> 3) hit me up on tumblr @archaicism with prompts or even just a hello! i love filling prompts and never get any so please come hang and give me something to do while i take story breaks!
> 
> aaaand that's about it. again, i love yall so much. couldn't be more thankful for such supportive people. thank you especially to spacejargon, whose comments have fueled me through the rougher weeks of writing and has been a huge source of inspiration to keep trucking along. also, if you haven't already checked out anderfels works, then please do so. their works are what got me started writing this, and this work completely reignited my passion for writing, fanworks and originals alike
> 
> thanks for your time. thanks for your love. see yall later :)


End file.
